Service 01 · Diagnostics
Technical SEO Audit Service
A forensic audit built from server logs, crawls and field data — delivered as a prioritised, engineering-ready backlog.
Most technical SEO audits are exports from a crawler with a severity score attached. Ours reconcile what Googlebot actually requests (logs), what your site actually renders (JavaScript parity) and what Google actually indexes (Search Console) — then rank every issue by revenue impact and engineering effort.
what-we-inspect.yml
CRAWL
robots, sitemaps, status codes, crawl traps
RENDER
raw vs rendered HTML, hydration, lazy-loading
INDEX
canonicals, noindex logic, duplicate clusters
LOGS
Googlebot hits per template, crawl waste
VITALS
LCP, INP, CLS from field data by template
Sound familiar?
Signs you need a technical SEO audit.
Pages are crawled but stay “Discovered – currently not indexed” for months.
Organic traffic dropped after a release and nobody can say which change caused it.
Googlebot spends its time on filter URLs instead of the pages that make money.
Search Console shows thousands of duplicates where Google chose a different canonical.
Core Web Vitals pass in Lighthouse but fail in the field.
You’re planning a migration or replatform and need a clean baseline first.
The difference
What a technical SEO audit is — and what most miss.
A technical SEO audit examines whether search engines can efficiently crawl, render, index and understand your website — and what is stopping them.
The problem with most audits is that they stop at symptoms. A crawler reports 4,000 pages with duplicate titles; it doesn’t tell you that one category template generates them, that Googlebot visits those URLs 30,000 times a month, or that fixing it is a two-line change in your routing layer.
Our audits start from your architecture — framework, rendering strategy, CDN and hosting — and trace every issue back to the component that produces it. The result is a short, ranked list of root causes, each written as a ticket your developers can pick up the same day. If you’re running a large catalogue, pair it with our ecommerce technical SEO work; if your front end is a JavaScript framework, see JavaScript SEO.
What’s included
Eight layers, one connected diagnosis.
Every audit covers the full technical stack, scoped to your platform and the templates that drive revenue.
Crawlability & crawl budget
robots.txt, XML sitemaps, status codes, redirect chains and the crawl traps that waste Googlebot’s time.
Indexation & root causes
Coverage mapped against what you want indexed — with the template or rule causing every gap.
JavaScript rendering parity
Raw vs rendered HTML diffs to find content, links and metadata that only exist after JavaScript runs.
Log file analysis
What Googlebot actually requests, how often, and where crawl budget leaks into low-value URLs.
Redirects, canonicals & duplicates
Canonical logic, parameter handling, duplicate clusters and hreflang validated at template level.
Internal linking & orphans
Link-graph analysis: click depth, orphan pages and how authority flows to the pages that convert.
Core Web Vitals by template
Field LCP, INP and CLS per page type, with root causes traced to assets, scripts and components.
Structured data validation
JSON-LD coverage, errors and rich-result eligibility across every template type.
How the audit works
Four phases, each with a clear exit.
Deliverables
Issue register ranked by impact × effort
Jira / Linear-ready tickets with acceptance criteria
Root-cause notes per template
Crawl, log & render datasets (yours to keep)
Executive summary for stakeholders
90-minute walkthrough with your dev team
Connect the data
Read-only access to Search Console, analytics and 30–90 days of server logs. We benchmark current crawl, index and performance state so every later change is measurable.
Controlled crawl & render
A configured crawl of your site as Googlebot sees it — raw HTML and fully rendered — segmented by template so issues are traced to the component, not the URL.
Reconcile crawl → render → index
We join logs, crawl and index data at URL level to see where Googlebot wastes time, where rendering breaks and why pages fall out of the index.
Score, specify & hand over
Every root cause is scored by impact and effort, written as a ticket with acceptance criteria, and walked through with your developers.
What changes
Your team stops debating SEO opinions and starts shipping a short, ranked list of fixes — each one traceable to data and measurable after release.
Sample output
An issue register, not a 300-row export.
Root causes, grouped by template, scored by revenue impact and engineering effort. This is what lands in your backlog.
issue-register.csv · illustrative
ID
ROOT CAUSE
TEMPLATE
IMPACT
EFFORT
SEO-101
Facet URLs crawlable & self-canonical
category
High
S
SEO-102
Pagination links rendered client-side only
category
High
M
SEO-103
Hero image lazy-loaded → LCP 3.8s
product
Medium
S
SEO-104
Out-of-stock pages return soft 404
product
Medium
M
SEO-105
Tag archives indexable, thin content
blog
Low
S
27 issues · 5 shown
→ exported to Jira
When to commission one
Who a technical audit is for.
TRAFFIC DROP
Unexplained traffic loss
Organic sessions fell after a release, core update or platform change and you need the root cause — not guesses.
PRE-MIGRATION
Before a replatform
Establish a clean technical baseline before you move, so the migration fixes debt instead of carrying it over. See website migration SEO.
GROWTH PLATEAU
Content isn’t moving the needle
You publish consistently but rankings stall — a sign that crawl, render or architecture is capping your ceiling.
Investment
Fixed scope, quoted upfront.
Pricing depends on site size, platform complexity and data access. You’ll receive a fixed quote after a 30-minute scoping call — no hourly billing, no surprises.
Related services
Often paired with the audit.
JavaScript SEO
When the audit finds rendering gaps on React, Next.js or Vue front ends.
Explore JavaScript SEO →
Core Web Vitals Optimization
When field performance is holding back rankings and conversions.
Explore Core Web Vitals →
Website Migration SEO
When the audit is the first step of a replatform or redesign.
Explore migrations →
FAQ
Technical SEO audit questions.
Anything else? Ask us directly — we reply within two working days.
What is included in a technical SEO audit?
Crawlability and crawl budget, indexation, JavaScript rendering, log file analysis, canonicals and duplicates, internal linking, Core Web Vitals by template and structured data. Every finding is traced to a root cause and delivered as a ranked, dev-ready ticket.
How long does a technical SEO audit take?
Typically 2–3 weeks from data access to walkthrough. Very large sites (1M+ URLs) or multi-domain setups can take longer; you’ll get a fixed timeline with your quote.
What access do you need?
Read-only Google Search Console and analytics access, 30–90 days of server or CDN logs if available, and a staging URL if you have one. We work under your security policies and sign NDAs as standard.
How much does a technical SEO audit cost?
Audits are quoted as a fixed price based on site size, platform and data access. After a 30-minute scoping call you’ll receive a written quote with scope, timeline and deliverables.
Will you help implement the fixes?
Yes. Every audit includes a walkthrough with your developers, and many clients continue with an implementation engagement where we join sprints, review pull requests and set up regression checks.
How is this different from a crawler report?
Crawlers report symptoms by URL. We combine logs, rendering tests and index data to find root causes by template, quantify their impact, and specify the fix — so your team works on 20 meaningful tickets instead of 3,000 warnings.
Next step
Get a clear read on your technical ceiling.
Send your URL and the problem you can’t move. You’ll get a scoped proposal with a fixed price within a few days.