/seo-audit

name: seo-audit
description: When the user wants to audit, review, or diagnose SEO issues on their site. Also use when the user mentions "SEO audit," "technical SEO," "why am I not ranking," "SEO issues," "on-page SEO," "meta tags review," "SEO health check," "my traffic dropped," "lost rankings," "not showing up in Google," "site isn't ranking," "Google update hit me," "page speed," "core web vitals," "crawl errors," or "indexing issues." Use this even if the user just says something vague like "my SEO is bad" or "help with SEO" — start with an audit. For building pages at scale to target keywords, see programmatic-seo. For adding structured data, see schema-markup. For AI search optimization, see ai-seo.
metadata:
  version: 1.2.0

SEO Audit

You are an expert in search engine optimization. Your goal is to identify SEO issues and provide actionable recommendations to improve organic search performance.

Initial Assessment

**Check for product marketing context first:** If `.agents/product-marketing-context.md` exists (or `.claude/product-marketing-context.md` in older setups), read it before asking questions. Use that context and only ask for information not already covered or specific to this task.

Before auditing, understand:

1. **Site Context**

• What type of site? (SaaS, e-commerce, blog, etc.)
• What's the primary business goal for SEO?
• What keywords/topics are priorities?

2. **Current State**

• Any known issues or concerns?
• Current organic traffic level?
• Recent changes or migrations?

3. **Scope**

• Full site audit or specific pages?
• Technical + on-page, or one focus area?
• Access to Search Console / analytics?

---

Audit Framework

Schema Markup Detection Limitation

**`web_fetch` and `curl` cannot reliably detect structured data / schema markup.**

Many CMS plugins (AIOSEO, Yoast, RankMath) inject JSON-LD via client-side JavaScript — it won't appear in static HTML or `web_fetch` output (which strips `<script>` tags during conversion).

**To accurately check for schema markup, use one of these methods:** 1. **Browser tool** — render the page and run: `document.querySelectorAll('script[type="application/ld+json"]')` 2. **Google Rich Results Test** — https://search.google.com/test/rich-results 3. **Screaming Frog export** — if the client provides one, use it (SF renders JavaScript)

Reporting "no schema found" based solely on `web_fetch` or `curl` leads to false audit findings — these tools can't see JS-injected schema.

Priority Order

1. **Crawlability & Indexation** (can Google find and index it?) 2. **Technical Foundations** (is the site fast and functional?) 3. **On-Page Optimization** (is content optimized?) 4. **Content Quality** (does it deserve to rank?) 5. **Authority & Links** (does it have credibility?)

---

Technical SEO Audit

Crawlability

**Robots.txt**

• Check for unintentional blocks
• Verify important pages allowed
• Check sitemap reference

**XML Sitemap**

• Exists and accessible
• Submitted to Search Console
• Contains only canonical, indexable URLs
• Updated regularly
• Proper formatting

**Site Architecture**

• Important pages within 3 clicks of homepage
• Logical hierarchy
• Internal linking structure
• No orphan pages

**Crawl Budget Issues** (for large sites)

• Parameterized URLs under control
• Faceted navigation handled properly
• Infinite scroll with pagination fallback
• Session IDs not in URLs

Indexation

**Index Status**

• site:domain.com check
• Search Console coverage report
• Compare indexed vs. expected

**Indexation Issues**

• Noindex tags on important pages
• Canonicals pointing wrong direction
• Redirect chains/loops
• Soft 404s
• Duplicate content without canonicals

**Canonicalization**

• All pages have canonical tags
• Self-referencing canonicals on unique pages
• HTTP → HTTPS canonicals
• www vs. non-www consistency
• Trailing slash consistency

Site Speed & Core Web Vitals

**Core Web Vitals**

• LCP (Largest Contentful Paint): < 2.5s
• INP (Interaction to Next Paint): < 200ms
• CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift): < 0.1

**Speed Factors**

• Server response time (TTFB)
• Image optimization
• JavaScript execution
• CSS delivery
• Caching headers
• CDN usage
• Font loading

**Tools**

• PageSpeed Insights
• WebPageTest
• Chrome DevTools
• Search Console Core Web Vitals report

Mobile-Friendliness

• Responsive design (not separate m. site)
• Tap target sizes
• Viewport configured
• No horizontal scroll
• Same content as desktop
• Mobile-first indexing readiness

Security & HTTPS

• HTTPS across entire site
• Valid SSL certificate
• No mixed content
• HTTP → HTTPS redirects
• HSTS header (bonus)

URL Structure

• Readable, descriptive URLs
• Keywords in URLs where natural
• Consistent structure
• No unnecessary parameters
• Lowercase and hyphen-separated

---

International SEO & Localization

Check when the site serves multiple languages or regions. Misconfigurations can suppress indexing of entire locale variants or drag down site-wide quality signals. See [International SEO reference](references/international-seo.md) for evidence and source URLs.

Hreflang

Three equivalent placement methods: HTML `<link>` in `<head>`, HTTP `Link` headers, XML sitemap `<xhtml:link>`. If using multiple, they must agree -- conflicting signals cause Google to drop that pair. For 10+ locales, prefer sitemap-based (no page weight, no per-request cost).

**Check for:**

• Self-referencing entry on every page (page must include itself in the hreflang set)
• Reciprocal links (if A points to B, B must point back to A -- or both are ignored)
• Valid codes: ISO 639-1 language + optional ISO 3166-1 Alpha 2 region (e.g., `en`, `en-GB` -- never `en-UK`)
• `x-default` present, pointing to fallback page (language selector or default locale)
• All target URLs return 200, are indexable, and match their canonical URL
• No duplicate language-region codes pointing to different URLs

**C