SEO · 5 January 2026 · 11 min read
The technical SEO checklist we run on every audit
A working technical SEO checklist covering crawling, indexation, Core Web Vitals, structured data, JavaScript rendering and AI crawler access — in the order we actually run them.
Quick answer
A technical SEO audit should run in this order: crawl access, indexation, site architecture, Core Web Vitals, rendering, structured data, internationalisation and AI crawler access. Fixing crawl and indexation first is what makes every later fix measurable, because Google must be able to see the change.
1. Crawl and access
Check
- robots.txt does not block CSS, JS or important sections
- No accidental noindex on templates or staging leftovers
- Server returns correct status codes — no soft 404s or 200 error pages
- Redirect chains resolved to a single hop
- Crawl budget is not consumed by faceted or parameter URLs
2. Indexation and duplication
Check
- Search Console coverage report has no unexplained exclusions
- Canonical tags are self-referencing and consistent with internal links
- Pagination is crawlable and not blocked by infinite scroll
- Thin, near-duplicate pages are consolidated or improved
- XML sitemaps are split by template and contain only indexable URLs
3. Core Web Vitals
| Metric | Target | Most common fix |
|---|---|---|
| LCP | < 2.5s | Preload hero image, cut render-blocking CSS |
| INP | < 200ms | Break long JS tasks, defer third-party scripts |
| CLS | < 0.1 | Set width and height on images and ad slots |
| TTFB | < 0.8s | Server caching, CDN, reduce redirect hops |
4. Structured data and AI access
Check
- Organization, WebSite and Breadcrumb schema sitewide
- Page-type schema — Product, Article, FAQPage, LocalBusiness — where accurate
- No schema for content invisible to users
- AI user agents explicitly allowed if you want AI visibility
- Key facts rendered server-side, not injected by client-only JavaScript
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