Technical SEO Audits
Technical SEO Audits That Find What Is Holding Your Website Back
By Irfan Ghaffar, SEO specialist with 4 years of experience · Updated 12 November 2026
My technical SEO audit finds what stops Google and AI tools from crawling, indexing and ranking the pages that bring you customers, then gives you a list of fixes ranked by impact. I check crawling, indexation, server logs, speed, structured data and bot access, and I verify each fix on the live site. I have solved technical problems on 34+ websites and run audits for 18+ clients. I work with clinics, trades and Shopify stores in the UK, USA, Australia and New Zealand.
It starts with a free first review of your site. You then get a fixed quote before you commit to anything.
Audit Scope
What Does a Technical SEO Audit Include?
The audit covers ten areas: indexing, crawling, status codes and redirects, duplicate URLs, speed, structured data, bot access at your CDN or firewall, AI crawler access, Search Console AI settings and server logs. Each finding names the affected URLs, the cause, the fix and its priority.
| Area | What I check | Why it matters to you |
|---|---|---|
| Indexing | Page indexing report, noindex tags, the canonical Google chose | A page outside the index cannot rank or be cited |
| Crawling | robots.txt, XML sitemap, crawl depth, pages with no internal links | Google has to find a page before it can index it |
| Status codes | 404s, 410s, server errors, redirect chains and loops | Broken paths lose visitors and crawler attention |
| Duplicate URLs | Parameters, www and http versions, Shopify collection paths | Copies of one page compete with each other |
| Speed | LCP, INP and CLS from real visitor data | Slow service pages lose enquiries on phones |
| Structured data | Errors, and markup that does not match the page | Valid schema keeps you eligible for rich results |
| Bot access at the edge | CDN, firewall and security plugin rules | A firewall can block Googlebot while robots.txt says allow |
| AI crawler access | Search crawlers from ChatGPT and other assistants | A blocked crawler means no place in that tool’s answers |
| Search Console AI settings | The Search generative AI setting and its report | One setting decides if Google’s AI features can show you |
| Server logs | What Googlebot requested and what it was served | Logs show crawl waste that a crawler cannot see |
I use Google Search Console, Screaming Frog, Ahrefs, Semrush, PageSpeed Insights, the Rich Results Test and a log file analyser.
If you want every check explained, my technical SEO audit guide walks through the full process.
Crawl Budget
Crawl Budget: Is Google Spending Its Time on the Right Pages?
Crawl budget is the set of URLs Google can and wants to crawl on your site. On most small sites it is not the limit. The usual problem is waste: Googlebot requesting spam, filter, redirect and dead URLs instead of the pages that earn you money.
Google’s own guide is written for sites with more than 1 million pages, or more than 10,000 pages that change daily (Google, updated July 2026). For everyone else, Google says an up to date sitemap and regular checks of the Page indexing report are adequate. So I will not sell you crawl budget work your site does not need.
What I do check on every site is the list of URLs Google knows about. The same Google guide names the causes of waste: duplicate content, soft 404s, long redirect chains and removed pages that do not return a 404 or 410.
Stores reach the problem sooner than other sites, because filters, sort options and variants create far more URLs than products. If you run a store, the audit feeds straight into my ecommerce SEO services.
Log File Analysis
Log File Analysis: What Googlebot Really Requests
Log file analysis reads your server’s own records to show which URLs Googlebot and other bots requested, how often, and what your server answered. A crawler shows what could be crawled. Logs show what was crawled, which makes them the clearest way to find crawl waste.
Here is what one of my log file projects found.
| Finding | Result |
|---|---|
| Bot hits analysed | 1,000 |
| URLs requested | 375 |
| Crawl waste | 38% |
| Spam URLs killed by one 410 rule | 111 |
| Redirects cleaned | 25 |
| Pages set to noindex | 5 |
| Fixes verified live | 47 of 47 |
The 30 day recheck on this project is still pending. I am not claiming any traffic or ranking gains from it yet.
Logs also answer two questions nothing else can. Does Googlebot get a 200 response or a 403 from your firewall? Do AI search crawlers reach your pages at all?
A small site does not always need this step. I recommend it when spam URLs appear in Search Console, when pages stay out of the index for no clear reason, or when your site sits behind a CDN.
Site Speed
Site Speed and Core Web Vitals
I measure speed from field data, meaning what real visitors experienced, using the Core Web Vitals report in Search Console and PageSpeed Insights. The three metrics are LCP for loading, INP for responsiveness and CLS for visual stability. You get the slow templates and the cause of each problem.
INP replaced First Input Delay on 12 March 2024 (Google). An audit that still scores FID is out of date.
Site speed optimization then goes into your fix list as specific tasks: image sizes, scripts that block rendering, server response time and layout shifts. Each Core Web Vitals fix is tied to a template, so one change improves every page built on it.
I fix what is clearly slow on the pages that earn you money, then stop. A perfect lab score is not the goal.
For mobile usability I test with Lighthouse and on a real phone. Google retired its old mobile testing tool and the Mobile Usability report on 1 December 2023 (Search Engine Land, 2023).
Indexation & Schema
Indexation and Structured Data
Indexation checks confirm that every page you want found is in Google’s index, with the canonical you chose. A structured data audit confirms your schema is valid and matches what visitors see. Both matter more now, because a page must be indexed before any Google AI feature can link to it.
Indexation
I read the Page indexing report in Search Console and run URL Inspection on your main pages. Then I check noindex tags, robots headers, robots.txt rules, canonical tags and the XML sitemap against a full crawl.
I crawl with JavaScript rendering switched on and compare the result with the raw HTML. If content only appears after scripts run, you will know which pages are affected.
For each group of duplicates you get one duplicate content fix: the version to keep, plus the canonical tag, redirect and internal links that must agree with it.
Structured data
I run your main templates through the Rich Results Test and fix errors. The markup has to describe what a visitor can see on the page.
Google says structured data is not required for its AI features, though it still supports rich results (Google Search Central, May 2026). Ahrefs tracked 1,885 pages that added schema and found no citation growth in AI Mode or ChatGPT (Ahrefs, 2026). So I audit schema for accuracy, and I will not sell it as a shortcut into AI answers.
AI Search Access
Can Google and AI Search Tools Reach Your Site?
Often they cannot, and a normal crawl report will not tell you. Three settings can block you without any warning: a CDN bot rule, a robots.txt rule that catches AI search crawlers, and the Search generative AI setting in Search Console. I check all three and confirm the result in your logs.
| Check | What can go wrong | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Google AI Overviews and AI Mode | A page must be indexed and able to show a snippet to appear | Google Search Central, May 2026 |
| Search Console AI setting | A property set to Exclude gets no impressions from Google’s AI features | Google, June 2026 |
| Cloudflare bot rules | Since 15 September 2026, blocking Training crawlers also blocks Googlebot, Bingbot and Applebot | Help Net Security, July 2026 |
| ChatGPT search | Sites that opt out of OAI-SearchBot are not shown in ChatGPT search answers, apart from navigational links | OpenAI crawler documentation |
Ranking still matters once the doors are open. In an Ahrefs study, pages that ranked in Google for the same question kept their AI Overview citation for a week or more 29% of the time, against 4% for pages that did not rank (Ahrefs, October 2026).
I cannot promise that an AI tool will cite you, because no one controls that. The audit confirms nothing technical is stopping it.
Your Deliverables
What Do You Get at the End of the Audit?
You get a fix list sorted by impact, written so that you or your developer can act on it the same day. Every item names the affected URLs, what is wrong, how to fix it and who can fix it. Blocks that hide pages from Google come first, and cosmetic warnings come last or are left out.
- A summary in plain language for the business owner
- The fix list, in priority order, with affected URLs
- Developer notes for each template or setting
- A list of tool warnings you can safely ignore
- A check of every fix on the live site
- A recheck date, set before the work starts
| Priority | Example | Why it comes here |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Sitewide noindex, robots.txt block, firewall returning 403 to Googlebot | One setting can hide the whole site |
| 2 | Service, location or collection pages not indexed, canonical conflicts | These pages earn the enquiries |
| 3 | Spam URLs, redirect chains, soft 404s | Crawler attention goes to the wrong URLs |
| 4 | Slow templates on money pages | Visitors leave before they enquire |
| 5 | Cosmetic warnings from tools | Low impact, fixed last or not at all |
I treat website audit services as unfinished until the fixes are live and checked. In the log file project above, all 47 fixes were verified on the live site.
How It Works
How Does the Audit Work, Step by Step?
The audit runs in six steps: a free first review, access, crawl and data collection, analysis, the fix list, then verification and a recheck. I keep this order because the early steps catch the problems that cost the most.
1. Free first review and fixed quote
I look at your site, your Search Console data if you can share it, and your Google Business Profile if you are a local business. You get the main findings and a fixed quote.
2. Access
You give me access to Search Console, your website platform such as WordPress or Shopify, and your CDN if you use one. For log file analysis I also need raw server logs from your host.
3. Crawl and data collection
I crawl the site with Screaming Frog, with JavaScript rendering on, and compare the crawl with your XML sitemap. I export indexing, crawl stats and Core Web Vitals data from Search Console.
4. Analysis and priority
Every finding is sorted by two questions. How many money pages does it touch, and how hard is it to fix?
5. Fix list
You receive the fix list and I answer your questions about it.
6. Fixes, verification and recheck
The fixes go live, done by me or by your developer. I check each one on the live site, then recheck on the agreed date, because Google needs time to recrawl the changed pages.
After the Audit
Technical SEO Services After the Audit
The audit tells you what to fix, and my technical SEO services cover the fixing. That includes redirects, canonical tags, robots.txt rules, XML sitemaps, 410 rules for dead URLs, noindex tags, schema corrections and speed work. I do the work where I have access, and brief your developer where I do not.
After the technical problems are cleared, the next gains usually come from pages and visibility. For local businesses that means local SEO services, and for stores it means collection and product page work.
Who It’s For
Technical SEO Audit Services for Clinics, Trades and Shopify Stores
The checks are the same for every site, but the order changes with where your money comes from. Clinics need every location and treatment page indexed. Trades need fast service pages on a phone. Stores need duplicate and filter URLs under control.
| Site type | What I check first | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Clinics and dental practices | Indexing and canonicals for every location and treatment page | Each location needs its own indexed page for searches near it |
| Trades and home services | Service page indexing, mobile speed, duplicate suburb pages | Most enquiries come from phones, and thin copies compete with each other |
| Shopify and ecommerce stores | Filter and sort URLs, collection path links, crawl waste in logs | Large catalogs spend crawler attention on near duplicate URLs |
For a clinic or trades business, your website and your Google Business Profile work as one system. The profile sends people to your site, so the page it links to has to be indexed, fast on a phone and clear about the service.
That is why I review both together. For one Sydney clinic with three locations, local SEO and profile work produced 454 enquiries: 278 calls from Google Maps and Google Business Profile, plus 176 website form enquiries. The clinic stays anonymous.
454
tracked enquiries
278
calls from Google Maps
176
website form enquiries
If your profile is the weak point, see my Google Business Profile optimisation service.
Proof
Proof: Numbers From Real Work
These numbers come from my own client work. Clients are never named.
| Result | Detail |
|---|---|
| 18+ | Audit clients |
| 34+ | Websites where I solved technical problems |
| 50+ | Websites ranked and grown |
| 40+ | Businesses ranked on Google Maps |
| 224,000 clicks in 28 days | One site, with 3.6 million impressions, a 6.2% click through rate and an average position of 5.4 |
| 35,000 clicks in one week | Another site |
| 454 enquiries | Sydney clinic, 3 locations: 278 calls from Google Maps and Google Business Profile, 176 website form enquiries |
| 47 of 47 | Fixes verified live in the log file project |
I do not guarantee rankings. No one controls Google’s results, and a result measured before Google has recrawled the fixed pages can mislead you.
Your Specialist
The Technical SEO Expert Behind the Audit
I’m Irfan Ghaffar, a technical SEO specialist with 4 years of experience. The person who audits your site is the person who writes the fix list, makes or checks the fixes and answers your emails.
You may have searched for a technical SEO consultant or a technical SEO agency. The job you need done is the same: find what blocks Google, fix it, and prove the fix is live.
Every recommendation comes with the reason behind it. If a tool flags something that will not change your results, I tell you to leave it alone.
Pricing
What the Audit Costs
The price depends on three things: how many URLs and templates your site has, which platform it runs on, and whether server logs are included. You get a fixed quote after the free first review, so you know the cost before you commit.
Where I Work
Countries I Work With
I audit sites for businesses in the UK, the USA, Australia and New Zealand, and all of the work is done remotely. Google crawls and indexes sites the same way in each country. If you run separate versions for different countries, I also check your hreflang tags and which version Google shows in each market.
FAQ
Frequently Asked Questions
Next Step
Book Your Technical SEO Audit
Send me your website address and what you have noticed: a traffic drop, pages missing from Google or a migration coming up. I reply with a free first review and a fixed quote. If you run a local business, I look at your Google Business Profile at the same time.