Short answer: An SEO audit is a review of how your site stands in search: whether Google can crawl and index it, whether anything is broken or under a manual action, and how the content holds up. You can do the core of it for free with Search Console. Start with manual actions and security issues, then move on to indexing, crawling, speed, links and content.
What an SEO audit covers
Google’s page on hiring an SEO lists the useful services SEOs provide. An audit draws on two of them: a review of your site’s content or structure, and technical advice on hosting, redirects, error pages and JavaScript.
Google also says that a small local business can probably do much of this work itself. Google’s free tools help with many of the checks.
Six areas to check, and where
Search Console is the starting point. Google describes it as a free service that helps you monitor, maintain and troubleshoot your site’s presence in Google Search results.
| Area | Where to check | What to look for |
|---|---|---|
| Manual actions and security | Search Console: Manual actions and Security issues | Any issue listed at all |
| Indexing | Search Console: Page indexing report | Important pages left out, and the reason given |
| Crawling | robots.txt and the URL Inspection tool | Pages or resources blocked by mistake |
| Speed | PageSpeed Insights, on mobile | Pages rated poor or needing improvement |
| Links | A link checker | Broken links to your own pages, then to other sites |
| Content and searches | Your pages and the Search Console Performance report | Thin or duplicate pages, and searches with views but few clicks |
Tools named in Google Search Central and Search Console Help, read November 3, 2026.
Start with the first row. If a site has a manual action, Google says some or all of it won’t be shown in search results. Most of these issues lead to lower rankings or pages left out. Pages with a security issue can carry a warning label in search results or show a warning page in the browser.
How to run your audit
- Add your site to Search Console if it isn’t there yet, and give it time to collect data.
- Open the Manual actions and Security issues reports, and fix anything listed before you move on.
- Read the Page indexing report and list the important pages that aren’t indexed, with their reason. Our guide to “Crawled - currently not indexed” explains one of those reasons.
- Check robots.txt, which controls crawling and not indexing, and inspect your main pages with the URL Inspection tool.
- Run PageSpeed Insights on mobile for each type of page you have.
- Run a link checker and fix broken links to your own pages first.
- Write down what you found, fix it in order of impact and repeat the audit after big changes.
Our guides to Google Search Console and PageSpeed Insights cover steps 1 to 5 in more detail, and our SEO checklist covers what to set up on a new site.
What our own audit found
We audited our own site on November 3, 2026, with the same free checks. Addresses typed with capital letters took two redirect hops to reach their page, and now take one. We fixed that between 11:25 and 11:27 AM.
A link check of our 348 sitemap pages found no problems with our 352 internal addresses. Of 1,144 external ones, two led to pages that no longer existed, both on our Spanish legal pages, and we replaced them that day.
Our 404 page met four of Google’s five tips, and we added the missing one, a way to report a broken link. The eight guides published that day passed all 64 width checks on phones.
Before you call your audit done
- Search Console shows no manual action or security issue.
- Your important pages are indexed, or you know why not.
- robots.txt blocks nothing you want Google to crawl.
- Your main page types pass the Core Web Vitals assessment in PageSpeed Insights, on mobile.
- No link of yours leads to a missing page.
- You have a dated list of what you fixed and what’s left.
RememberAn audit is only as good as the fixes that follow it. Start with manual actions, security and indexing, fix in order of impact, and run it again with every big change.
If you want us to audit your site and fix what we find, see our technical SEO service.
Quick answers about SEO audits
What is an SEO audit?
A review of how your site stands in search: whether Google can crawl and index it, whether anything is broken or under a manual action, and how the content and structure hold up. Google lists that review among the useful services SEOs offer.
Can I do an SEO audit for free?
Yes, the core of it. Search Console is a free Google service that helps you monitor, maintain and troubleshoot your site’s presence in Google Search. It covers indexing, manual actions, security issues and the sites that link to yours.
Do I need to hire an SEO for an audit?
Not always. Google says that if you run a small local business, you can probably do much of the work yourself, starting with its SEO starter guide. Knowing the basics also helps you judge an SEO’s advice.
Will paying for Google Ads improve my audit or my rankings?
No. Google says advertising with Google won’t have any effect on your site’s presence in its search results. It also says it never accepts money to include or rank sites there.
How often should I audit my site?
After anything big: a redesign, a move to a new platform, a batch of new or deleted pages. Between audits, check each new page as it goes live. We review our own site after each round of changes.
Sources
Read on November 3, 2026. Google Search Central: Do you need an SEO? Search Console Help: About Search Console, Manual actions report and Security issues report. Our own case: our review of our site, November 3, 2026.