Technical Website Audit
A technical website audit examines the structural health of your website: whether search engines can find and index your pages, whether the site loads quickly enough to retain visitors, and whether the underlying architecture supports your commercial goals.
Technical issues are invisible to most business leaders until they become commercial problems. A page that cannot be crawled cannot rank. A site that loads slowly loses visitors before they see your offer. A broken redirect chain silently drains authority.
What a technical audit examines
Crawlability
Can search engines access and navigate your site? This includes robots.txt configuration, XML sitemaps, internal link structure, and crawl budget allocation.
Common issues
- Blocked resources in robots.txt
- Missing or malformed sitemaps
- Orphan pages with no internal links
- Crawl budget wasted on low-value pages
Indexation
Are your important pages appearing in search results? This covers index status, canonical tags, noindex directives, and duplicate content issues.
Common issues
- Important pages excluded from index
- Duplicate content diluting authority
- Conflicting canonical signals
- Thin content triggering quality filters
Site Architecture
Is your site structure logical and efficient? This examines URL hierarchy, internal linking patterns, navigation depth, and information architecture.
Common issues
- Critical pages too far from homepage
- Broken internal links
- Redirect chains and loops
- Inconsistent URL structures
Core Web Vitals
Does your site meet Google's performance thresholds? This measures Largest Contentful Paint, Interaction to Next Paint, and Cumulative Layout Shift.
Common issues
- LCP above 2.5 seconds
- INP above 200 milliseconds
- CLS above 0.1
- Poor mobile performance scores
Mobile Optimisation
Does your site work properly on mobile devices? This covers responsive design, touch targets, viewport configuration, and mobile-specific issues.
Common issues
- Content not sized to viewport
- Touch targets too small
- Horizontal scrolling required
- Different content on mobile vs desktop
Server Configuration
Is your hosting environment properly configured? This examines HTTPS implementation, server response codes, caching headers, and compression.
Common issues
- Mixed content warnings
- Missing security headers
- Inefficient caching policies
- Server errors and timeouts
Common technical problems we find
After reviewing hundreds of websites, certain technical issues appear repeatedly. These are not edge cases. They are systemic failures that affect most sites to some degree.
Blocked JavaScript rendering
Modern websites rely heavily on JavaScript. When Googlebot cannot render JavaScript properly, it sees a blank page. Your beautiful content is invisible to search engines.
Impact: Pages do not appear in search results despite being technically published.
Canonical confusion
Multiple URLs serving the same content without proper canonical tags. HTTP and HTTPS versions. WWW and non-WWW versions. Trailing slashes and no trailing slashes. Each variation dilutes your authority.
Impact: Search engines struggle to identify the primary version. Ranking signals are split.
Redirect chains
Page A redirects to Page B, which redirects to Page C. Each hop loses authority and slows loading. After 3-4 hops, search engines often stop following.
Impact: Link equity is lost. Page speed suffers. Crawl budget is wasted.
Mobile-first failures
Google indexes mobile versions of pages first. If your mobile site has less content, fewer links, or worse performance than desktop, that is what Google sees.
Impact: Rankings drop because Google is evaluating your weakest version.
Core Web Vitals thresholds
Many sites fail Largest Contentful Paint because hero images are not optimised or fonts block rendering. Many fail CLS because ads and images load without dimension attributes.
Impact: Poor user experience signals affect rankings. Visitors bounce before content loads.
How a technical audit is conducted
A technical audit follows a systematic process. The sequence matters because issues discovered in earlier steps inform priorities in later steps.
Crawl analysis
Automated crawlers scan your entire site, identifying every URL, every link, every resource. Tools like Screaming Frog or Sitebulb reveal the site structure that search engines see.
Index coverage review
Google Search Console data shows which pages are indexed, which are excluded, and why. This reveals gaps between what you publish and what appears in search.
Performance measurement
Core Web Vitals are measured using field data from Chrome User Experience Report and lab data from tools like Lighthouse and WebPageTest.
Mobile testing
Mobile rendering is tested across devices and screen sizes. Mobile-first indexing compliance is verified through Google's mobile-friendly testing tools.
Server analysis
HTTP headers are inspected. SSL certificates are validated. Response codes are catalogued. Caching policies are reviewed.
Priority mapping
Issues are categorised by severity and effort. Critical issues that block indexing are prioritised over minor optimisations that provide marginal gains.
Tools used in technical audits
Screaming Frog
Site crawling and technical analysis
Google Search Console
Index coverage and search performance
PageSpeed Insights
Core Web Vitals and performance scoring
Chrome DevTools
Rendering, network, and performance debugging
WebPageTest
Detailed loading waterfall analysis
Mobile-Friendly Test
Mobile rendering verification
Frequently asked questions
A basic technical audit of a small site (under 500 pages) takes 2-3 days. A comprehensive audit of a large site (10,000+ pages) takes 2-3 weeks. Enterprise sites with multiple subdomains may take longer.
Yes, often more so. New sites frequently have technical issues baked in from launch. It is easier and cheaper to fix architecture problems before you build content on top of a flawed foundation.
A technical audit focuses on infrastructure: can search engines crawl and index your site efficiently. An SEO audit focuses on content and authority: are you targeting the right keywords with quality content. Both are necessary for search visibility.
Comprehensive technical audits should occur annually or after major site changes. Continuous technical monitoring through tools like Search Console should be ongoing.
Part of the wider Commercial Assessment
A technical audit tells you what is broken. It does not tell you why it is broken or whether fixing it matters. That requires a broader examination of your commercial system.
- Technical issues often have organisational causes: no one owns technical health, multiple teams make changes, developers leave without documentation.
- Fixing a technical problem without fixing the governance that created it means the problem returns.
- Some technical issues are not worth fixing: the commercial cost of the fix exceeds the commercial benefit.
The Commercial Assessment examines the technical layer alongside five other domains: channels and reporting, attribution, sales handoff, user experience, and team capability. Technical health is one piece of a larger picture.
Learn about Commercial AssessmentTechnical foundation matters
If you suspect technical issues are affecting your search visibility or user experience, that is worth investigating. But if you suspect the problem is systemic, not just technical, you need a broader assessment.