A comprehensive technical SEO audit requires checking hundreds of potential issues across your entire website. This definitive checklist covers every critical element, organized by category for systematic auditing. Use this with LibreCrawl to ensure nothing slips through the cracks.

How to Use This Checklist

This checklist is organized into 10 major categories. For each section:

  1. Run the appropriate crawl or analysis with LibreCrawl
  2. Check each item systematically
  3. Document issues found with severity ratings
  4. Prioritize fixes based on impact and effort
  5. Re-crawl after fixes to verify resolution

1. Crawlability & Indexability (15 Points)

Robots.txt

  • ☐ Robots.txt file exists and is accessible at /robots.txt
  • ☐ No critical pages or sections blocked accidentally
  • ☐ Sitemap location specified in robots.txt
  • ☐ User-agent directives are correct
  • ☐ Crawl-delay is not set too high (avoid if possible)

XML Sitemaps

  • ☐ XML sitemap exists and is submitted to GSC
  • ☐ Sitemap contains all important pages
  • ☐ No 404s, redirects, or noindex pages in sitemap
  • ☐ Sitemap file size under 50MB (uncompressed)
  • ☐ URLs in sitemap are canonical versions
  • ☐ Lastmod dates are accurate and meaningful
  • ☐ Priority values are set appropriately

Indexability

  • ☐ Important pages are not blocked by meta robots noindex
  • ☐ X-Robots-Tag HTTP header not blocking indexing unintentionally
  • ☐ Pagination handled correctly (view-all, rel=next/prev, or paginated sitemaps)

2. Site Architecture & Internal Linking (12 Points)

  • ☐ Clear hierarchical structure (Home → Category → Subcategory → Page)
  • ☐ Important pages within 3 clicks from homepage
  • ☐ Flat architecture where appropriate (avoid unnecessary depth)
  • ☐ Logical URL structure reflecting site hierarchy
  • ☐ Internal linking distributes PageRank effectively
  • ☐ No orphaned pages (pages with no internal links pointing to them)
  • ☐ Breadcrumb navigation implemented correctly
  • ☐ Main navigation accessible without JavaScript (or properly rendered)
  • ☐ Footer links to important sections present
  • ☐ Reasonable number of internal links per page (not excessive)
  • ☐ Related content recommendations implemented
  • ☐ Link equity flowing to priority pages

3. URLs & Redirects (14 Points)

URL Structure

  • ☐ URLs are descriptive and human-readable
  • ☐ Hyphens used as word separators (not underscores)
  • ☐ Lowercase URLs throughout site
  • ☐ No unnecessary parameters or session IDs in URLs
  • ☐ URLs are reasonably short (under 100 characters when possible)
  • ☐ Target keywords in URL when relevant

Redirects

  • ☐ All old URLs have 301 redirects to new URLs
  • ☐ No redirect chains (A → B → C; should be A → C)
  • ☐ No redirect loops
  • ☐ 302 redirects are intentional (not accidental)
  • ☐ Redirects are fast (under 500ms)

HTTP/HTTPS

  • ☐ Site uses HTTPS across all pages
  • ☐ HTTP→HTTPS 301 redirects in place
  • ☐ HSTS header implemented

4. On-Page SEO Elements (18 Points)

Title Tags

  • ☐ Every page has a unique title tag
  • ☐ Title tags are 50-60 characters (Google displays ~600px)
  • ☐ Target keyword appears in title, preferably near beginning
  • ☐ Title tags are compelling and click-worthy
  • ☐ Brand name positioning is consistent

Meta Descriptions

  • ☐ Every page has a unique meta description
  • ☐ Meta descriptions are 150-160 characters
  • ☐ Descriptions include target keywords naturally
  • ☐ Descriptions include calls-to-action where appropriate

Heading Tags

  • ☐ One H1 per page
  • ☐ H1 contains primary keyword
  • ☐ Proper heading hierarchy (H1 → H2 → H3, no skipping)
  • ☐ Headings describe content structure logically
  • ☐ Target keywords in H2s and H3s where relevant

Content

  • ☐ No duplicate content issues
  • ☐ Sufficient content length for topic depth (typically 300+ words minimum)
  • ☐ Target keywords used naturally in content
  • ☐ LSI keywords and related terms included

5. Images & Multimedia (10 Points)

  • ☐ All images have descriptive alt text
  • ☐ Alt text includes keywords naturally (not stuffed)
  • ☐ Decorative images have empty alt="" attribute
  • ☐ Image file names are descriptive (not IMG_1234.jpg)
  • ☐ Images are optimized for web (compressed appropriately)
  • ☐ Modern image formats used (WebP, AVIF) with fallbacks
  • ☐ Responsive images implemented (srcset, picture element)
  • ☐ Lazy loading implemented for below-fold images
  • ☐ Videos have transcripts and captions
  • ☐ Image dimensions specified in HTML to prevent layout shift

6. Mobile Optimization (11 Points)

  • ☐ Site is mobile-friendly (passes Google Mobile-Friendly Test)
  • ☐ Responsive design implemented (not separate mobile URLs)
  • ☐ Viewport meta tag correctly configured
  • ☐ Text is readable without zooming (16px+ font size)
  • ☐ Tap targets are appropriately sized (48x48px minimum)
  • ☐ No horizontal scrolling required
  • ☐ Mobile viewport doesn't have fixed-width elements
  • ☐ Forms are usable on mobile
  • ☐ Buttons and links are easy to tap
  • ☐ Pop-ups don't interfere with mobile UX
  • ☐ Mobile page speed is acceptable (see next section)

7. Page Speed & Core Web Vitals (12 Points)

General Performance

  • ☐ Server response time under 600ms (200ms ideal)
  • ☐ No render-blocking resources in critical path
  • ☐ CSS and JavaScript minified
  • ☐ Images compressed and optimized
  • ☐ Browser caching configured properly
  • ☐ CDN implemented for static assets
  • ☐ HTTP/2 or HTTP/3 enabled

Core Web Vitals

  • ☐ Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) under 2.5 seconds
  • ☐ First Input Delay (FID) under 100ms (or INP under 200ms)
  • ☐ Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) under 0.1
  • ☐ First Contentful Paint (FCP) under 1.8 seconds
  • ☐ Time to Interactive (TTI) under 3.8 seconds

8. Structured Data & Schema (10 Points)

  • ☐ Appropriate schema types implemented (Article, Product, Organization, etc.)
  • ☐ Schema markup is valid (no errors in Rich Results Test)
  • ☐ Breadcrumb schema implemented
  • ☐ Organization/LocalBusiness schema on homepage
  • ☐ Product schema with price, availability, reviews (for e-commerce)
  • ☐ Article schema with author, publish date, image
  • ☐ FAQ schema where applicable
  • ☐ Review/Rating schema implemented correctly
  • ☐ Event schema for events pages
  • ☐ No conflicting schema types on same page

9. International & Multi-Language SEO (8 Points)

  • ☐ Hreflang tags implemented correctly (if multi-language/regional)
  • ☐ Hreflang includes x-default for unmatched regions
  • ☐ Language/region versions are properly cross-linked
  • ☐ Content is genuinely translated (not machine-translated)
  • ☐ URLs indicate language/region (e.g., /en/, /fr/, /uk/)
  • ☐ Each language version has proper targeting in GSC
  • ☐ No duplicate content issues between language versions
  • ☐ Currency, units, and formatting appropriate for region

10. Technical Issues & Errors (12 Points)

HTTP Status Codes

  • ☐ No 404 errors on important pages
  • ☐ 404 pages have helpful custom design
  • ☐ No soft 404s (pages returning 200 but showing 404 content)
  • ☐ 500/503 server errors identified and fixed

Canonicalization

  • ☐ Canonical tags present on all pages
  • ☐ Canonical tags point to correct version
  • ☐ Self-referencing canonicals on standard pages
  • ☐ No canonical conflicts (HTTP header vs HTML tag)

JavaScript & Rendering

  • ☐ Important content doesn't require JavaScript (or is properly rendered)
  • ☐ No JavaScript errors in console
  • ☐ Lazy-loaded content is crawlable
  • ☐ Client-side routing doesn't break SEO

Using LibreCrawl for Your Audit

Initial Setup

  1. Configure LibreCrawl with your target URL
  2. Enable JavaScript rendering if site uses frameworks
  3. Set appropriate timeout values (5-7 seconds for JS sites)
  4. Configure custom headers if authentication needed

Running the Crawl

  1. Start full site crawl with unlimited URL limit
  2. Monitor real-time memory usage
  3. Watch for crawl errors or patterns
  4. Wait for complete crawl (can take hours for large sites)

Analyzing Results

  1. Export complete dataset to CSV
  2. Use spreadsheet to track checklist items
  3. Create issue severity ratings (Critical, High, Medium, Low)
  4. Categorize issues by type
  5. Calculate totals for reporting

Key Metrics to Check in LibreCrawl

Crawl Overview:

  • Total URLs crawled
  • Crawl depth distribution
  • HTTP status code breakdown
  • Response time distribution

Content Analysis:

  • Missing title tags
  • Duplicate titles
  • Title length issues
  • Missing meta descriptions
  • Duplicate meta descriptions
  • Thin content pages (under 200 words)

Links:

  • Broken internal links
  • Broken external links
  • Redirect chains
  • Pages with no internal links (orphans)

Images:

  • Images with missing alt text
  • Oversized images (over 100KB)
  • Broken image links

Priority Matrix

Not all issues are equal. Prioritize based on this matrix:

Critical (Fix Immediately)

  • Site not using HTTPS
  • Robots.txt blocking important sections
  • Widespread 404/500 errors
  • Core Web Vitals failing
  • Mobile usability issues
  • Major duplicate content problems

High Priority (Fix Within 1-2 Weeks)

  • Missing or duplicate title tags
  • Missing meta descriptions
  • Redirect chains
  • Orphaned important pages
  • Broken high-traffic pages
  • Schema markup errors

Medium Priority (Fix Within 1 Month)

  • Image optimization
  • Missing alt text
  • Heading hierarchy issues
  • Thin content on secondary pages
  • Minor page speed issues

Low Priority (Address Eventually)

  • URL structure improvements
  • Breadcrumb enhancements
  • Internal linking optimization
  • Additional schema types

Creating an Audit Report

Executive Summary

  • Overall site health score
  • Critical issues count
  • High priority issues count
  • Estimated impact of fixes
  • Recommended action plan

Detailed Findings

  • Issue category breakdown
  • Specific examples with URLs
  • Screenshots where helpful
  • Technical explanations
  • Recommended fixes

Action Plan

  • Prioritized task list
  • Responsible party for each task
  • Estimated effort (hours/days)
  • Dependencies between tasks
  • Target completion dates

Automated Monitoring

Technical SEO isn't a one-time task. Set up automated monitoring:

Weekly Checks

  • Crawl errors in Google Search Console
  • 404 error rate
  • Server response time
  • Core Web Vitals in GSC

Monthly Checks

  • Full site crawl with LibreCrawl
  • Compare to previous month
  • Index coverage changes
  • New issues introduced

Quarterly Checks

  • Comprehensive technical audit (use this checklist)
  • Competitive analysis
  • Algorithm update impact review
  • Update audit procedures for new SEO factors

Common Mistakes to Avoid

  • Crawling without JavaScript rendering on modern sites - Use LibreCrawl's Playwright integration
  • Ignoring mobile experience - Always audit both desktop and mobile
  • Focusing only on homepage - Audit the entire site, including deep pages
  • Not verifying fixes - Always re-crawl after implementing fixes
  • Treating all issues equally - Use the priority matrix above
  • Auditing staging instead of production - Audit what users and search engines actually see
  • Not documenting baseline metrics - Track improvements over time

Conclusion

A thorough technical SEO audit requires systematic checking of over 100 potential issues. This checklist provides a comprehensive framework, but remember that each site is unique. Some items won't apply to every site, and you may discover site-specific issues not covered here.

Use LibreCrawl to automate the discovery of technical issues, then apply this checklist to ensure comprehensive coverage. Regular audits (at minimum quarterly) help catch issues before they impact rankings and traffic.

Key takeaways:

  • Audit systematically using this 100+ point checklist
  • Use LibreCrawl to automate discovery of technical issues
  • Prioritize fixes based on impact and effort
  • Document baseline metrics and track improvements
  • Re-audit quarterly and after major site changes

Start Your Technical SEO Audit with LibreCrawl

Use LibreCrawl's unlimited crawling and JavaScript rendering to complete every item on this checklist. Free forever, no limits.

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