Indexing, technical health, on-page, search intent, structured data and AI search: a sensible order for an SEO audit, plus checks you can run yourself.
An SEO audit doesn’t start with keywords. It starts with whether Google can find and index your pages at all. This article walks through the order in which we review an existing website – from indexing to visibility in AI search – and the checks you can run yourself in Google Search Console.
The order matters because each step depends on the one before. A perfect title tag is worthless on a page that’s set to noindex.
1. Indexing and crawlability
First we establish whether search engines are allowed to reach and store your content.
- robots.txt: Is it accidentally blocking important folders, or the CSS and JavaScript files Google needs to render pages? Worth knowing: a robots.txt block stops crawling, but it doesn’t reliably keep a page out of the index. To remove a page from search, use noindex – and leave the page crawlable so Google can actually see the tag.
- noindex: Is there a noindex meta tag or HTTP header somewhere it shouldn’t be? A common one after a relaunch: the setting from the staging site gets carried over to the live site.
- XML sitemap: Does it exist, is it submitted in Search Console, and does it list only pages you want indexed? Redirects, error pages and noindexed URLs don’t belong there.
- Canonicals: Do canonical tags point to the right version of each page? Google treats them as a hint, not a directive. Mixed signals – say, a canonical pointing to a URL that itself redirects – leave Google to make its own choice.
2. Technical health
Once we know Google can reach the pages, we look at the state they arrive in.
- Status codes: Do key pages return 200? Where are there 404s that internal links still point to? Are there soft 404s – thin or empty pages that still report 200?
- Redirects: Permanent moves should use a 301. Chains (A → B → C) and loops slow down crawlers and visitors alike.
- Core Web Vitals: Google measures page experience with three metrics. The “good” thresholds are:
- LCP (Largest Contentful Paint): 2.5 seconds or less
- INP (Interaction to Next Paint): 200 milliseconds or less
- CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift): 0.1 or less
What counts is field data from real visitors, not a single lab test on a fast connection.
3. On-page basics
Now we go page by page.
- Title tags: Is each one unique, descriptive and a sensible length? Duplicate titles often mean several pages are competing for the same topic.
- Headings: Is there one clear H1, and do the subheadings reflect the content logically?
- Meta descriptions: They aren’t a ranking factor, but they influence whether people click your result.
- Internal links: Can your most important pages be reached from the homepage and from related content? Orphan pages with no internal links are hard for Google to find and tend to be treated as unimportant.
4. Content and search intent
A technically clean page still won’t rank if it answers the wrong question. For your key search terms we look at what Google currently shows near the top: guides, product pages, local results, comparisons?
If your page is selling a service but searchers first want to understand the topic, the page doesn’t match the intent. Another keyword won’t fix that. A different page type, or a supporting article, will.
5. Structured data
Structured data (Schema.org, usually as JSON-LD) helps Google understand what a page is about – your business, products, events or articles. We check that it’s present, valid and consistent with what’s visible on the page.
Bear in mind that not every schema type leads to a rich result, and Google decides whether to show one. Structured data helps; it doesn’t guarantee anything.
6. Visibility in AI search
More and more answers are generated right inside search, for example in Google’s AI Overviews or in chat assistants that browse the web. Google’s own guidance is that the same fundamentals apply as for regular search: indexable pages, clear content, good structure.
What we check on top of that:
- Does your robots.txt block AI search crawlers you’d actually like to allow – or allow ones you’d rather keep out? That should be a deliberate decision, not a default.
- Do your pages answer questions clearly and directly enough that a single paragraph could be quoted as an answer?
- Are details such as your business name, address and services consistent everywhere?
What you can check yourself in Search Console
For a first overview you don’t need anything beyond the free Google Search Console:
- Indexing → Pages: See how many pages are indexed and why others aren’t – for instance “Excluded by ‘noindex’ tag” or “Crawled – currently not indexed”. Check whether any important pages show up in those lists.
- Sitemaps: Is your sitemap submitted and processed without errors?
- URL Inspection: Enter the URL of a key page. You’ll see whether it’s indexed, which canonical Google has chosen and when it was last crawled.
- Core Web Vitals: This report shows field data for mobile and desktop, grouped into “Good”, “Needs improvement” and “Poor”.
- Performance: Look for queries where you get impressions but hardly any clicks. These often point to pages whose title or content doesn’t match the search.
Bottom line
A good SEO audit works from the ground up: indexing and technical health first, then pages and content, then structured data and AI search. If you’d rather not go through it yourself, PAASKS can run this audit on your existing site and hand you a prioritised list of fixes.