seo-technical

# Technical SEO Audit

## When to Use

- Use when the user wants a technical SEO review focused on crawlability, indexability, performance, or rendering.
- Use when auditing robots.txt, canonicalization, JavaScript SEO, Core Web Vitals, or AI crawler access.
- Use when the task is infrastructure- and implementation-oriented rather than content-focused.

## Categories

### 1. Crawlability
- robots.txt: exists, valid, not blocking important resources
- XML sitemap: exists, referenced in robots.txt, valid format
- Noindex tags: intentional vs accidental
- Crawl depth: important pages within 3 clicks of homepage
- JavaScript rendering: check if critical content requires JS execution
- Crawl budget: for large sites (>10k pages), efficiency matters

#### AI Crawler Management

As of 2025-2026, AI companies actively crawl the web to train models and power AI search. Managing these crawlers via robots.txt is a critical technical SEO consideration.

**Known AI crawlers:**

| Crawler | Company | robots.txt token | Purpose |
|---------|---------|-----------------|---------|
| GPTBot | OpenAI | `GPTBot` | Model training |
| ChatGPT-User | OpenAI | `ChatGPT-User` | Real-time browsing |
| ClaudeBot | Anthropic | `ClaudeBot` | Model training |
| PerplexityBot | Perplexity | `PerplexityBot` | Search index + training |
| Bytespider | ByteDance | `Bytespider` | Model training |
| Google-Extended | Google | `Google-Extended` | Gemini training (NOT search) |
| CCBot | Common Crawl | `CCBot` | Open dataset |

**Key distinctions:**
- Blocking `Google-Extended` prevents Gemini training use but does NOT affect Google Search indexing or AI Overviews (those use `Googlebot`)
- Blocking `GPTBot` prevents OpenAI training but does NOT prevent ChatGPT from citing your content via browsing (`ChatGPT-User`)
- ~3-5% of websites now use AI-specific robots.txt rules

**Example, selective AI crawler blocking:**
```
# Allow search indexing, block AI training crawlers
User-agent: GPTBot
Disallow: /

User-agent: Google-Extended
Disallow: /

User-agent: Bytespider
Disallow: /

# Allow all other crawlers (including Googlebot for search)
User-agent: *
Allow: /
```

**Recommendation:** Consider your AI visibility strategy before blocking. Being cited by AI systems drives brand awareness and referral traffic. Cross-reference the `seo-geo` skill for full AI visibility optimization.

### 2. Indexability
- Canonical tags: self-referencing, no conflicts with noindex
- Duplicate content: near-duplicates, parameter URLs, www vs non-www
- Thin content: pages below minimum word counts per type
- Pagination: rel=next/prev or load-more pattern
- Hreflang: correct for multi-language/multi-region sites
- Index bloat: unnecessary pages consuming crawl budget

### 3. Security
- HTTPS: enforced, valid SSL certificate, no mixed content
- Security headers:
  - Content-Security-Policy (CSP)
  - Strict-Transport-Security (HSTS)
  - X-Frame-Options
  - X-Content-Type-Options
  - Referrer-Policy
- HSTS preload: check preload list inclusion for high-security sites

### 4. URL Structure
- Clean URLs: descriptive, hyphenated, no query parameters for content
- Hierarchy: logical folder structure reflecting site architecture
- Redirects: no chains (max 1 hop), 301 for permanent moves
- URL length: flag >100 characters
- Trailing slashes: consistent usage

### 5. Mobile Optimization
- Responsive design: viewport meta tag, responsive CSS
- Touch targets: minimum 48x48px with 8px spacing
- Font size: minimum 16px base
- No horizontal scroll
- Mobile-first indexing: Google indexes mobile version. **Mobile-first indexing is 100% complete as of July 5, 2024.** Google now crawls and indexes ALL websites exclusively with the mobile Googlebot user-agent.

### 6. Core Web Vitals
- **LCP** (Largest Contentful Paint): target <2.5s
- **INP** (Interaction to Next Paint): target <200ms
  - INP replaced FID on March 12, 2024. FID was fully removed from all Chrome tools (CrUX API, PageSpeed Insights, Lighthouse) on September 9, 2024. Do NOT reference FID anywhere.
- **CLS** (Cumulative Layout Shift): target <0.1
- Evaluation uses 75th percentile of real user data
- Use PageSpeed Insights API or CrUX data if MCP available

### 7. Structured Data
- Detection: JSON-LD (preferred), Microdata, RDFa
- Validation against Google's supported types
- See seo-schema skill for full analysis

### 8. JavaScript Rendering
- Check if content visible in initial HTML vs requires JS
- Identify client-side rendered (CSR) vs server-side rendered (SSR)
- Flag SPA frameworks (React, Vue, Angular) that may cause indexing issues
- Verify dynamic rendering setup if applicable

#### JavaScript SEO: Canonical & Indexing Guidance (December 2025)

Google updated its JavaScript SEO documentation in December 2025 with critical clarifications:

1. **Canonical conflicts:** If a canonical tag in raw HTML differs from one injected by JavaScript, Google may use EITHER one. Ensure canonical tags are identical between server-rendered HTML and JS-rendered output.
2. **noindex with JavaScript:** If raw HTML contains `<meta name="robots" content="noindex">` but JavaScript removes it, Google MAY still honor the noindex from raw HTML. Serve correct robots directives in the initial HTML response.
3. **Non-200 status codes:** Google does NOT render JavaScript on pages returning non-200 HTTP status codes. Any content or meta tags injected via JS on error pages will be invisible to Googlebot.
4. **Structured data in JavaScript:** Product, Article, and other structured data injected via JS may face delayed processing. For time-sensitive structured data (especially e-commerce Product markup), include it in the initial server-rendered HTML.

**Best practice:** Serve critical SEO elements (canonical, meta robots, structured data, title, meta description) in the initial server-rendered HTML rather than relying on JavaScript injection.

### 9. IndexNow Protocol
- Check if site supports IndexNow for Bing, Yandex, Naver
- Supported by search engines other than Google
- Recommend implementation for faster indexing on non-Google engines

## Output

### Technical Score: XX/100

### Category Breakdown
| Category | Status | Score |
|----------|--------|-------|
| Crawlability | pass/warn/fail | XX/100 |
| Indexability | pass/warn/fail | XX/100 |
| Security | pass/warn/fail | XX/100 |
| URL Structure | pass/warn/fail | XX/100 |
| Mobile | pass/warn/fail | XX/100 |
| Core Web Vitals | pass/warn/fail | XX/100 |
| Structured Data | pass/warn/fail | XX/100 |
| JS Rendering | pass/warn/fail | XX/100 |
| IndexNow | pass/warn/fail | XX/100 |

### Critical Issues (fix immediately)
### High Priority (fix within 1 week)
### Medium Priority (fix within 1 month)
### Low Priority (backlog)

## DataForSEO Integration (Optional)

If DataForSEO MCP tools are available, use `on_page_instant_pages` for real page analysis (status codes, page timing, broken links, on-page checks), `on_page_lighthouse` for Lighthouse audits (performance, accessibility, SEO scores), and `domain_analytics_technologies_domain_technologies` for technology stack detection.

## Error Handling

| Scenario | Action |
|----------|--------|
| URL unreachable | Report connection error with status code. Suggest verifying URL, checking DNS resolution, and confirming the site is publicly accessible. |
| robots.txt not found | Note that no robots.txt was detected at the root domain. Recommend creating one with appropriate directives. Continue audit on remaining categories. |
| HTTPS not configured | Flag as a critical issue. Report whether HTTP is served without redirect, mixed content exists, or SSL certificate is missing/expired. |
| Core Web Vitals data unavailable | Note that CrUX data is not available (common for low-traffic sites). Suggest using Lighthouse lab data as a proxy and recommend increasing traffic before re-testing. |