A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | >> Preliminary questions | |||||||
2 | # | Thing to check | Method | Instructions | Response | Triage | ||
3 | 1 | Why is this audit being performed? | link | N/A | ||||
4 | 2 | Was this website recently migrated from another platform, server, or domain? | ask the client | N/A | N/A | |||
5 | 3 | What was the reason for the migration? | ask the client | N/A | N/A | |||
6 | 4 | If a migration was performed, was there a drop in rankings, conversions or organic traffic? | ask the client | N/A | N/A | |||
7 | 5 | When did the migration take place? | ask the client | N/A | N/A | |||
8 | 6 | Are there crawls of the website pre-migration? | ask the client | N/A | N/A | |||
9 | 7 | Do you or the client have admin access to Wordpress dashboard? | ask the client | N/A | N/A | |||
10 | 8 | Do you or the client have admin access to DNS settings? | ask the client | N/A | N/A | |||
11 | 9 | Is Google Tag Manager being used? | manual check in-browser | N/A | N/A | |||
12 | 10 | Do you or the client have access privileges to Google Tag Manager? | ask the client | N/A | N/A | |||
13 | 11 | Do you or the client have access privileges to Google Search Console? | ask the client | N/A | N/A | |||
14 | 12 | Do you or the client have access privileges to Google Analytics? | ask the client | N/A | N/A | |||
15 | 13 | Is Google Search Console connected? | Google Search Console | N/A | N/A | |||
16 | 14 | Does Google Search Console have data? | Google Search Console | N/A | N/A | |||
17 | 15 | Is Google Analytics connected? | Google Analytics | N/A | N/A | |||
18 | 16 | Does Universal Google Analytics have data? | Google Analytics | N/A | N/A | |||
19 | 17 | Is there more than one UA profile? | manual check in-browser | N/A | N/A | |||
20 | 18 | Has Google Analytics 4 been set up? | Google Analytics | N/A | N/A | |||
21 | 19 | Does Google Analytics 4 have data? | Google Analytics | N/A | N/A | |||
22 | 18 | Are AMP pages being tracked in a separate Google Analytics property? | Google Analytics | N/A | N/A | |||
23 | >> Crawling-related (mostly) | robots.txt | GSC | sitemaps | internal search | JS | | |||||||
24 | # | Thing to check | Method | Instructions | Response | Triage | ||
25 | 1 | Is there a robots.txt file? | manual check in-browser | link | N/A | |||
26 | 2 | Are crawlers or search engine crawlers being blocked in the robots.txt file? | Google Search Console | link | N/A | |||
27 | 3 | Are paginated URLs being blocked in robots.txt? | manual check in-browser | link | N/A | |||
28 | 4 | Are JavaScript files being blocked in robots.txt? | Screaming Frog / Sitebulb | link | N/A | |||
29 | 5 | Does the robots.txt file disallow parametised URLs? | manual check in-browser | link | N/A | |||
30 | 6 | Are there any host status problems reported in Search Console crawl stats? | Google Search Console | link | N/A | |||
31 | 7 | Are there crawl requests being made as reported in Search Console crawl stats? | Google Search Console | link | N/A | |||
32 | 8 | Are there crawl requests being made for "refresh" purposes in Search Console crawl stats? | Google Search Console | link | N/A | |||
33 | 9 | Are there crawl requests being made for "discovery" purposes in Search Console crawl stats? | Google Search Console | link | N/A | |||
34 | 10 | According to Search Console crawl stats, have HTML files been crawled in the last 72-hours? | Google Search Console | link | N/A | |||
35 | 11 | Does the website have a sitemap? | manual check in-browser | link | N/A | |||
36 | 12 | Is the sitemap XML or HTML? | manual check in-browser | link | N/A | |||
37 | 13 | Is the sitemap index URL(s) referenced in the robots.txt file? | manual check in-browser | link | N/A | |||
38 | 14 | How many URLs are in the sitemap? | Screaming Frog / Sitebulb | link | N/A | |||
39 | 15 | Are there more than 1000 URLs in a sitemap? | Screaming Frog / Sitebulb | link | N/A | |||
40 | 16 | Are non-indexable URLS in the sitemap? | Screaming Frog / Sitebulb | link | N/A | |||
41 | 17 | Are there URLs that are blocked in robots.txt that are found in the sitemap? | Screaming Frog / Sitebulb | link | N/A | |||
42 | 18 | Have sitemaps been submitted to Google Search Console? | Google Search Console | link | N/A | |||
43 | 19 | Has Google Search Console processed the submitted sitemap(s)? | Google Search Console | link | N/A | |||
44 | 20 | Can internal search URLs be crawled? | SEO Pro Extension | link | N/A | |||
45 | 21 | Are any redirects done via JavaScript? | Screaming Frog / Sitebulb | link | N/A | |||
46 | 22 | Are redirects being done client-side via meta refresh? | Screaming Frog / Sitebulb | link | N/A | |||
47 | 23 | Does the website have pagination? | manual check in-browser | link | N/A | |||
48 | 24 | Have paginated URLs been included in the sitemap(s)? | Screaming Frog / Sitebulb | link | N/A | |||
49 | 25 | Are there any internal links not wrapped by an <a> tag? | Screaming Frog / Sitebulb | link | N/A | |||
50 | >> Rendering | |||||||
51 | # | Thing to check | Method | Instructions | Response | Triage | ||
52 | 1 | Is there a trend of increasing "Submitted URL seems to be a soft 404" in Search Console index coverage errors? | Google Search Console | N/A | ||||
53 | 2 | What theme is being used? | manual check in-browser | N/A | ||||
54 | 3 | Are there known issues with this theme? | not applicable | N/A | ||||
55 | 4 | Does the website use a pagebuilder? | manual check in-browser | N/A | ||||
56 | 5 | Does the pagebuilder have known issues? | not applicable | N/A | ||||
57 | 6 | Is lazy loading applied to above-the-fold images? | Lighthouse | N/A | ||||
58 | 7 | Does the primary navigation menu load when JavaScript is disabled? | Screaming Frog / Sitebulb | N/A | ||||
59 | 8 | Is all the body content visible when JavaScript is disabled? | Screaming Frog / Sitebulb | N/A | ||||
60 | >> Indexing-related (mostly) | |||||||
61 | # | Thing to check | Method | Instructions | Response | Triage | ||
62 | 1 | Does the website rank in the top 2 positions when searching for the brand name in Google? | manual check in-browser | link | N/A | |||
63 | 2 | Does http redirect to https? | SEO Pro Extension | link | N/A | |||
64 | 3 | Is the site www or non-www? | manual check in-browser | link | N/A | |||
65 | 4 | If www by default, does non-www redirect to www? | SEO Pro Extension | N/A | ||||
66 | 5 | If non-www by default, does www redirect to non-www? | SEO Pro Extension | N/A | ||||
67 | 6 | Do URLs end with a trailing slash or non-trailing slash? | manual check in-browser | link | N/A | |||
68 | 7 | If URLs have a trailing slash by default, do URLs without trailing slash redirect to trailing slash? | SEO Pro Extension | N/A | ||||
69 | 8 | If URLs do not have a trailing slash by default, do URLs with a trailing slash redirect to non-trailing slash? | SEO Pro Extension | N/A | ||||
70 | 9 | Are there orphaned URLs in the sitemap? | Screaming Frog / Sitebulb | link | N/A | |||
71 | 10 | Are there 301 URLs in the sitemap? | Screaming Frog / Sitebulb | link | N/A | |||
72 | 11 | Are there 404 URLs in the sitemap? | Screaming Frog / Sitebulb | link | N/A | |||
73 | 12 | How are sitemaps generated on the website? | manual check in-browser | link | N/A | |||
74 | 13 | Do any of the sitemaps in Google Search Console show errors? | Google Search Console | link | N/A | |||
75 | 14 | Are there errors reported in Search Console index coverage? | Google Search Console | link | N/A | |||
76 | 15 | Are these errors expected? | not applicable | N/A | ||||
77 | 16 | Are there URLs marked as "Submitted URL blocked by robots.txt in Search Console index coverage? | Google Search Console | N/A | ||||
78 | 17 | Are there valid URLs reported in Search Console index coverage? | Google Search Console | N/A | ||||
79 | 18 | Are there an increasing number of URLs reported as "Indexed not submitted in sitemap" in Search Console index coverage? | Google Search Console | N/A | ||||
80 | 19 | Are there excluded URLs reported in Search Console index coverage? | Google Search Console | N/A | ||||
81 | 20 | Is there a trend of increasing URLs reported as "Crawled - currently not indexed" in Search Console index coverage? | Google Search Console | N/A | ||||
82 | 21 | Is there a trend of increasing URLs reported as "Discovered - currently not indexed" in Search Console index coverage? | Google Search Console | N/A | ||||
83 | 22 | Is there a trend of increasing URLs reported as "Excluded by noindex tag" in Search Console index coverage? | Google Search Console | N/A | ||||
84 | 23 | Is there a trend of increasing URLs reported as "Duplicate without user-selected canonical" in Search Console index coverage? | Google Search Console | N/A | ||||
85 | 24 | Is there a trend of increasing URLs reported as "Duplicate, Google chose different canonical than user" in Search Console index coverage? | Google Search Console | N/A | ||||
86 | 25 | In Search Console Search Performance, are clicks trending up, down or staying steady in the last 16-months? | Google Search Console | N/A | ||||
87 | 26 | In Search Console Search Performance, are impressions trending up, down or staying steady in the last 16-months? | Google Search Console | N/A | ||||
88 | 27 | Are there non-indexable URLs? | Screaming Frog / Sitebulb | N/A | ||||
89 | 28 | Should these URLs be set as noindex? | not applicable | N/A | ||||
90 | 29 | Are there 301/302 redirections in place? | Screaming Frog / Sitebulb | N/A | ||||
91 | 30 | Are these redirections correct? | not applicable | N/A | ||||
92 | 31 | Are there internal links pointing to 404 or 301 URLs? | Screaming Frog / Sitebulb | N/A | ||||
93 | 32 | Are there redirect chains? | Screaming Frog / Sitebulb | N/A | ||||
94 | 33 | Do URLs have canonicals set? | Screaming Frog / Sitebulb | N/A | ||||
95 | 34 | Are the canonical tags correct? | Screaming Frog / Sitebulb | N/A | ||||
96 | 35 | Are internal search URLs indexable? | Screaming Frog / Sitebulb | N/A | ||||
97 | 36 | Does the website have internal links pointing towards URLs generated by internal search? | Screaming Frog / Sitebulb | N/A | ||||
98 | 37 | How many indexable URLs does the website have? | Screaming Frog / Sitebulb | link | N/A | |||
99 | 38 | How may URLs are indexed on Google? | Screaming Frog with GSC API | link | N/A | |||
100 | 39 | How many URLs are not indexed on Google? | Screaming Frog with GSC API | link | N/A |