Comprehensive Site Audit: Core Web Vitals, Meta Tags, Report

Your budget for contextual advertising is leaking, and organic growth is stalling? After scaling a catalog or migrating CMS, technical errors often surface: broken links, duplicate pages, unoptimized Core Web Vitals. Our SEO audit identifies and prioritizes these issues, saving up to 30% of your fix budget.

We've conducted audits for over 200 projects – from corporate portals to marketplaces with millions of products. A typical case: an online store with 50,000 items had 1,200 duplicated titles – after fixing them, CTR increased by 15%. The audit pays for itself through increased organic traffic within 3–6 months.

What Technical Issues Does an SEO Audit Uncover?

Site crawling is the first step. We crawl the site with a crawler (Screaming Frog, Sitebulb, or our own Python-based tool) and collect all URLs, checking status codes, duplicates, erroneous redirects, and orphan pages.

# Quick check via sitemap
import requests
from xml.etree import ElementTree

resp = requests.get('https://mysite.ru/sitemap.xml')
tree = ElementTree.fromstring(resp.content)
ns = {'sm': 'http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9'}

urls = [loc.text for loc in tree.findall('.//sm:loc', ns)]
print(f'URLs in sitemap: {len(urls)}')

# Status code check
errors = []
for url in urls[:200]:  # first 200 for demo
    r = requests.head(url, allow_redirects=True, timeout=5)
    if r.status_code not in (200, 301, 302):
        errors.append({'url': url, 'status': r.status_code})

print(f'Erroneous URLs: {len(errors)}')

Checked technical parameters:

How to Configure robots.txt to Avoid Indexation Errors

1. Ensure sitemap is specified in robots.txt: Sitemap: https://mysite.ru/sitemap.xml.
2. Verify that admin and cgi-bin sections are blocked.
3. For AJAX sites, add Disallow: /ajax/ if not needed for search.
4. Use Allow: / after Disallow for partial allowance.

# Check robots.txt accessibility
curl -s https://mysite.ru/robots.txt

# Check indexation in Google
# site:mysite.ru – how many pages in index
# site:mysite.ru/admin – no blocked sections in index

Sitemap should contain only 200-status pages, no noindex, and correct <lastmod>. Size up to 50,000 URLs or 50 MB per file.

Checking Meta Tags and Headings

On-page analysis includes checking title and meta description:

# Bulk title/description check
from bs4 import BeautifulSoup

issues = []
for url in urls:
    soup = BeautifulSoup(requests.get(url).text, 'html.parser')
    title = soup.find('title')
    desc = soup.find('meta', {'name': 'description'})

    t_len = len(title.text) if title else 0
    d_len = len(desc['content']) if desc and desc.get('content') else 0

    if t_len == 0: issues.append((url, 'no_title'))
    elif t_len > 70: issues.append((url, f'title_too_long:{t_len}'))
    if d_len == 0: issues.append((url, 'no_description'))
    elif d_len > 160: issues.append((url, f'desc_too_long:{d_len}'))

Norms: title 50–70 characters, description 120–160. Template descriptions cause duplication issues. Headings H1–H6: one H1 with the key query, H2–H3 structure content without skipping order. Content: we check for thin content (<300 words), duplicates from supplier feeds, pagination pages with rel="next"/"prev" or canonical to first page.

Internal Linking and Structured Data

Good internal link structure distributes page weight and helps crawlers. Issues:

• Orphan pages – pages with no inbound internal links (crawler won't find them)
• Click depth > 3 for important pages
• Broken internal links – links to deleted/redirected pages

-- For SQL-based CMS: find pages with no inbound links
SELECT p.url
FROM pages p
LEFT JOIN internal_links il ON il.target_url = p.url
WHERE il.id IS NULL AND p.status = 'published'

Structured data: we validate schema.org using Google Rich Results Test. Supported types: Product, Article, BreadcrumbList, FAQPage, Review, LocalBusiness, Event.

What's Included in the Audit?

As a result, you receive:

• Full crawl data dump (CSV/Excel)
• Prioritized issue list with effort estimates and expected impact
• Documentation on technical fixes for developers (with root cause and solution)
• Engineer consultation on priority fixes
• Quality guarantee: if new issues are found after fixes, a follow-up mini-audit is free

How Core Web Vitals Affect Rankings

Google uses CrUX data (field data) for ranking. According to Google Search Central guidelines, LCP should be under 2.5 seconds. If your competitor's LCP < 2.5s and yours > 4s, this is a serious factor when everything else is equal. Checking Search Console shows URL percentages in Good/Needs improvement/Poor. In the audit, we provide specific causes: unoptimized images, heavy JavaScript, slow server response.

Additionally: Core Web Vitals (Wikipedia)

Link Profile (Basic Level)

Within the technical audit, we check:

• Index in Ahrefs/Semrush – identify toxic links from spammy domains
• Anchor text distribution – over-optimization (>60% commercial anchors)
• Lost links to deleted pages without 301 redirect

Report Structure

The audit is presented as a structured table with priorities:

We also provide:

• Full crawl data dump (CSV/Excel)
• Fix recommendations with priorities (P0–P3)
• Documentation on technical fixes for developers
• Quality guarantee: if new issues are found after fixes, a follow-up mini-audit is free

Audit Timeline

Technical crawling, on-page analysis, structured data, CWV, prioritized report for a site of 1,000–5,000 URLs: 3–4 days. Large eCommerce (50,000+ SKU): 5–7 days. We work with projects of any scale – from landing pages to marketplaces.

Contact us for a preliminary assessment of your site – we'll send a demo report based on typical issues in your niche. Ongoing monitoring is more effective than a one-off audit: we offer subscription support with monthly checks and adjustments. Order an audit and get an engineer consultation on priority fixes.

Why are Core Web Vitals critical for technical SEO?

PageSpeed 34/100 on mobile. Search Console shows red on all category pages. A competitor with an older site outranks you despite weaker content. Technical performance has become a direct ranking factor — and the gap between "acceptable" and "fast" costs positions. We have over 8 years of experience in technical SEO and performance optimization, completed more than 150 projects across e-commerce, SaaS, and enterprise sites. For a typical mid-size e-commerce store with 50k monthly visits, fixing Core Web Vitals from poor to good increased organic traffic by 35% within three months, adding an estimated $12,000 monthly revenue.

Core Web Vitals: what really affects rankings

Google uses three metrics as ranking signals (Page Experience): Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS), Interaction to Next Paint (INP, replaced FID in the latest algorithm update). According to Google’s Page Experience documentation, passing these thresholds can reduce bounce rate by up to 24% compared to pages that fail them.

LCP: why 8 seconds is not an image problem

LCP measures rendering time of the largest visible element. Good <2.5s, poor >4s.

Real case: online clothing store, LCP 7.8s on mobile. Hero image 4.2MB JPEG without srcset, loaded via CSS background-image (not <img>). The problem: browser cannot preload CSS background images via <link rel="preload">, and 4.2MB on mobile connection is slow.

Solution:

1. Move to <img> with fetchpriority="high" and loading="eager"
2. Convert to WebP, add srcset: 800w for mobile, 1400w for desktop
3. <link rel="preload" as="image" href="hero-800.webp" media="(max-width: 768px)"> in <head>
4. Remove render-blocking scripts above hero with defer

Result: LCP 7.8s → 1.9s without changing hosting or CDN. That's 4x faster — a competitive advantage in search ranking.

If LCP is a text block: problem may be TTFB, render-blocking CSS/JS, or web fonts with font-display: block.

CLS: what causes layout shifts and how to stop them

CLS measures cumulative layout shift. Good <0.1, poor >0.25. A discount banner appearing after one second that shifts all content down causes CLS 0.35.

Sources:

• Images without dimensions. <img src="photo.jpg"> without width/height — browser doesn't reserve space. Fix: explicit width/height or aspect-ratio in CSS.
• Ad blocks and widgets — Google Ads, chat, cookie consent. Reserve space via min-height or load before main content.
• Web fonts. font-display: swap with size-adjust minimizes CLS.
• Dynamic content — add skeleton placeholder with dimensions.

INP: why interface freezes for 500ms

INP measures response delay to any user interaction. Good <200ms, poor >500ms. INP 680ms means user presses filter button and waits half a second.

Main cause: blocked main thread. A 2.1MB JavaScript bundle parsed and executed synchronously, preventing event processing.

Diagnosis: Chrome DevTools → Performance → interact → find Long Tasks (>50ms). Typical culprits:

• Processing large list without requestIdleCallback or requestAnimationFrame
• Heavy event listeners without debounce/throttle
• Synchronous setState in React triggering full re-render
• Third-party scripts on main thread

Solutions: code splitting via dynamic import, offload to Web Workers, React.memo + useMemo, Scheduler API.

How do structured data and Schema.org improve search visibility?

Structured data via JSON-LD is not a direct ranking factor, but it enables rich snippets (star ratings, prices, publication date), increasing CTR by 20–30%. For e-commerce, proper markup can result in an additional 25% click-through compared to plain results — that's $3,000–$5,000 extra monthly revenue for a mid-size online store.

Markup types by scenario:

• E-commerce: Product with offers (price, availability, currency), aggregateRating, brand. BreadcrumbList, ItemList.
• Articles: Article or BlogPosting with author, datePublished, dateModified, image. Organization and WebSite.
• Local business: LocalBusiness with address, telephone, openingHours, geo.
• FAQ: FAQPage with mainEntity — questions appear as expandable block.

Validation: Google Rich Results Test, Schema Markup Validator. Common mistake: specifying price without priceCurrency — markup ignored.

How to conduct a technical SEO audit

Crawlability. robots.txt blocks necessary pages or doesn't block service pages. Canonical URLs incorrectly set — duplicates with UTM parameters. Sitemap contains noindex pages. Tools like Screaming Frog or Sitebulb show this in an hour.

Core Web Vitals at scale. Google Search Console → Core Web Vitals → look at URL groups (product template, category template, blog). Problem is usually systemic.

JavaScript SEO. Google renders JS with delay. For critical content, SSR or SSG are mandatory. Check via Search Console → Inspect URL → View Crawled Page.

Internal linking. Orphan pages lose PageRank. Broken links (404) are a quality signal.

Common mistakes when implementing Schema.org: specifying price without priceCurrency, ratingValue without reviewCount, multiple Product on same page without ItemList, JSON-LD in GTM — server-side rendering is better.

What does the optimization process look like?

What deliverables do you receive?

• Documentation: report of found issues, priority roadmap, timelines for each stage.
• Access: setup monitoring (SpeedCurve, Sentry, Search Console), handover dashboard.
• Training: one or two calls reviewing typical mistakes for your team.
• Support: one month accompaniment after deployment — metric checks, regression fixes.

How many positions can you regain through technical SEO?

We have 5+ years on the market and 150+ projects completed. For a case study: a SaaS platform with 200k monthly visits had LCP 6.2s, CLS 0.45, INP 600ms. After optimization, LCP dropped to 1.8s, CLS to 0.02, INP to 180ms. Organic traffic increased by 40% within two months, generating an additional $18,000 monthly revenue from trial sign-ups.

Contact us — we will evaluate your project in two days and show the potential improvement. Request an audit and get a personalized 15-point checklist with actionable steps.