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The 60-point SEO audit checklist (2026)

By Vishal · Published 13 October 2026

An SEO audit checklist is the fixed list of checks a site is inspected against. This is ours — 60 items across crawl and indexing, Core Web Vitals, on-page, content and keywords, internal links, trust and EEAT, and authority — with the weight each group carries in the score and the free tools that run most of it. Use it to audit your own site or to hold any agency's audit to a standard.

How to use it

Run it top to bottom; the order is the order of importance. Mark each item pass, warn or fail with a note of the evidence (URL, screenshot, number). Weights are how we score: critical groups count three times, on-page and content groups twice, authority once. Tools that cover most items for free: a crawler (Screaming Frog, free to 500 URLs), Google Search Console, PageSpeed Insights (which shows CrUX field data), Google's Rich Results test, and the engines themselves for AI visibility. Our free checker runs 17 of the on-page items on any single page in 20 seconds.

Or have us run it — ₹2,999

Crawl and indexing 12 checks · Critical ×3

  1. Site served over HTTPS with valid certificate; HTTP redirects to HTTPS
  2. One canonical host (www or non-www) with the other redirecting
  3. robots.txt present, allows content, blocks admin/search/parameter URLs, lists the sitemap
  4. XML sitemap(s) valid, submitted, containing only indexable 200 URLs with accurate lastmod
  5. No important pages blocked by noindex, robots.txt or X-Robots-Tag
  6. Canonical tag on every page, self-referencing by default, consistent with internal links
  7. No redirect chains or loops; no internal links to 3xx/4xx URLs
  8. Custom 404 returns a 404 status and routes to useful pages
  9. No orphan pages (every indexable URL reachable from internal links)
  10. Parameter, filter and sort URLs handled (canonical/noindex) so they do not multiply
  11. Important content rendered in HTML at first load, not only via client-side JavaScript
  12. Google Search Console: coverage errors reviewed; "crawled – not indexed" below 10% of submitted URLs

Speed and Core Web Vitals 8 checks · Critical ×3

  1. LCP ≤ 2.5 s on mobile from field data (CrUX) for key templates
  2. INP ≤ 200 ms from field data
  3. CLS ≤ 0.1 from field data; space reserved for images, ads, embeds
  4. Images sized, compressed, modern format (AVIF/WebP), lazy-loaded below the fold
  5. Fonts self-hosted, ≤ 2 families, preloaded, font-display: swap
  6. Render-blocking CSS/JS minimised; third-party scripts audited and deferred
  7. Server time to first byte under 800 ms; CDN in front of origin
  8. Mobile viewport meta present; tap targets and text legible without zoom

On-page 14 checks · On-page ×2

  1. Unique title tag per page, ≤ 60 characters, target query near the front
  2. Unique meta description per page, 140–160 characters, with the answer or benefit
  3. Exactly one H1 per page stating the topic; H2/H3 hierarchy without skipped levels
  4. Direct answer or key takeaway in the first 40–60 words
  5. Section headings phrased as the questions people ask where appropriate
  6. Clean, readable URLs with keywords; no dates for evergreen content
  7. Descriptive alt text on content images; decorative images marked as such
  8. Structured data per template (Organization, Person, Article, Product, Service, Breadcrumb) validated and matching visible content
  9. Open Graph and Twitter card tags with a generated image per page
  10. Internal links in body copy with descriptive anchors
  11. No keyword stuffing, hidden text, or doorway-style near-duplicate pages
  12. Breadcrumbs with BreadcrumbList schema
  13. Pagination and category pages indexable only where they add value
  14. hreflang correct if multi-language or multi-region

Content and keywords 10 checks · On-page ×2

  1. Every money page maps to one primary query and a set of related queries
  2. No cannibalisation: one URL per intent (checked in Search Console query/page data)
  3. Topical coverage: pillar pages with supporting cluster pages for each core topic
  4. Pages ranking at positions 5–20 with impressions identified for quick wins
  5. Pages with ≥ 20% decline in clicks/position over 8 weeks identified for refresh
  6. Thin pages (low word count, no unique value, zero impressions after 6 months) identified to merge or remove
  7. Original evidence on key pages: data, tests, photos, pricing, worked examples
  8. Publish and truthful updated dates on articles
  9. Comparison/review pages have criteria, a method and a table
  10. Content answers the sub-questions AI engines fan out into (PAA/related searches covered)

Internal links 6 checks · On-page ×2

  1. Money pages receive internal links from every relevant content page
  2. Pillar ↔ cluster linking in both directions; sibling clusters cross-linked
  3. Every new page has ≥ 3 inbound internal links
  4. Navigation and footer expose pillars, money pages and trust pages within one click
  5. Anchor text descriptive and varied; no "click here"
  6. Link depth: key pages within 3 clicks of home

Trust and EEAT 6 checks · On-page ×2

  1. Named author with bio page, credentials and consistent external profiles (sameAs)
  2. About page naming the organisation, people and location
  3. Contact page with real contact details; business address where applicable
  4. Editorial/review policy, affiliate and advertising disclosures where relevant
  5. Reviews and testimonials attributable and not incentivised without disclosure
  6. Organization and Person schema linked by @id across the site

Authority and AI visibility 4 checks · Authority ×1

  1. Referring domains: count, relevance, trend; toxic patterns reviewed
  2. Competitor link gap: domains linking to top competitors but not to you
  3. At least one genuinely linkable asset (tool, data, definitive guide) or a plan to build one
  4. AI engines allowed in robots.txt; Search Console generative AI control on Include; citation share baseline recorded

Sixty is not a magic number; it is where the list stopped earning its place. We add an item when it changes a fix list for a real site and remove one when it stops doing that. Last reviewed October 2026 against Google's current documentation and the 2025–26 core update guidance.

Questions people ask

How long does an SEO audit take with this checklist?

For a site under 500 pages, a competent person with a crawler, Search Console and CrUX access needs about a working day to run all 60 checks and another half day to write the fix list. Our 48-hour delivery covers exactly that.

Which checks matter most?

The crawl/indexing and Core Web Vitals groups. If a page cannot be fetched, is not indexed, or fails on phones, nothing in the other groups counts. That is why they are weighted three times in our score.

Can I run this myself for free?

Most of it. Screaming Frog (free to 500 URLs), Google Search Console, PageSpeed Insights for CrUX data, and the Rich Results test cover about 50 of the 60. The link and AI-visibility checks need a link index or a manual prompt panel. Our free checker runs 17 of the on-page items on any single page.

See exactly what is holding your site back

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