What a website SEO audit checks

How an audit reads your site

An audit tool starts at your home page and follows links, much like a search engine crawler. A polite crawler first reads your robots.txt file and skips the areas you have asked bots to avoid. For each page it collects the address, the response code, the title, the headings, the links and other details, then compares them against common rules.

Can search engines reach your pages?

• Response codes: 200 means fine, 301 and 302 mean redirected, 404 means missing, 500-type codes mean a server error.
• robots.txt: whether rules block important sections by accident.
• XML sitemap: whether it exists and lists the pages you want found.
• Canonical tags: which address each page says is the main version, so duplicates do not compete.
• Redirect chains: one redirect leading to another, which slows crawlers and visitors.

Can search engines understand your pages?

• Page titles: missing, repeated across pages, or too long to display.
• Meta descriptions: missing or duplicated.
• Headings: no H1, several H1s, or headings out of order.
• Image alt text: images with no description for screen readers and search engines.
• Structured data: whether the page carries schema markup at all.

Is the page pleasant to use?

• HTTPS: whether pages load securely and without mixed content warnings.
• Mobile basics: a viewport setting and layout that works on phones.
• Broken links: links to pages that no longer exist, inside or outside your site.
• Speed: Core Web Vitals such as how fast the main content appears, how much the layout jumps and how quickly the page responds to taps.

What an audit cannot tell you

An audit sees the code and structure of your pages. It does not know whether your copy is persuasive, accurate or better than a competitor's. It does not show where you rank, how many sites link to you, or how many people search for your services. A clean audit is a healthy base, not a promise of traffic.

Also remember that an audit score is a summary made by the tool. Two tools can score the same site differently. Focus on the individual issues and their impact.

How often to run one

Run a full audit after launching or redesigning a site, after moving to new hosting, and at least monthly for a site that changes often. Small, frequent checks catch problems such as a broken menu link or a deleted page before they linger for months.

The audit in AI Marketing Master

The AI Marketing Master crawler respects robots.txt and checks titles, meta descriptions, headings, broken links, redirects, images without alt text, canonical tags, sitemap and robots.txt, HTTPS, mobile basics and whether structured data is present. Speed figures come from Google: Chrome UX Report field data from real visitors where it exists, and PageSpeed Insights lab tests, for both phone and computer. Results arrive as a report in everyday language, ordered by what to fix first, and Milo can explain any item you are unsure about.