Quick Answer: The Technical Audit checks five categories: Crawlability, Content Structure, Schema & Structured Data, Performance, and Security. Each category receives its own grade and contributes to your overall health score.
What You’ll Learn
All five audit categories in detail
Specific checks within each category
How each check affects AI visibility
Priority levels for different issues
Category 1: Crawlability Weight: 25% of overall grade Ensures AI and search bots can access your content.
Check Severity What’s Tested robots.txt Critical Are AI bots blocked? XML sitemap Warning Does sitemap exist and is it valid? Broken links Warning Any 404 errors found? Redirect chains Warning More than 2 redirects in sequence? Canonical tags Warning Proper canonical implementation? Noindex pages Info Intentional or accidental noindex? Crawl depth Info Are important pages too deep?
Why it matters for AI If AI bots can’t reach your pages, they can’t read your content. Blocked bots = zero chance of being recommended.
Category 2: Content Structure Weight: 25% of overall grade Ensures your content is properly organized for both humans and AI.
Check Severity What’s Tested Title tags Critical Present, unique, proper length? Meta descriptions Warning Present, unique, compelling? H1 tags Critical Exactly one per page? Heading hierarchy Warning Proper H1→H2→H3 nesting? Image alt text Warning Descriptive alt text on images? Content length Info Pages with very thin content? Duplicate content Warning Significant content duplication?
Why it matters for AI AI parses headings and structure to understand content hierarchy. Poor structure = AI misunderstands your content.
Category 3: Schema & Structured Data Weight: 20% of overall grade Ensures you have proper structured data markup for AI parsing.
Check Severity What’s Tested Article schema Warning Present on blog/article pages? Organization schema Warning Brand entity defined? FAQ schema Info Present on FAQ content? HowTo schema Info Present on tutorial content? Breadcrumb schema Info Navigation structure marked? Schema validity Critical Any invalid/broken markup? Schema completeness Info Required fields populated?
Why it matters for AI Schema explicitly tells AI what your content IS. Without it, AI must infer content type - and may get it wrong.
Weight: 20% of overall grade Ensures your site is fast enough for efficient bot crawling.
Check Severity What’s Tested Page load speed Warning Under 3 seconds? Largest Contentful Paint Warning Under 2.5 seconds? First Input Delay Info Under 100ms? Cumulative Layout Shift Info Under 0.1? Server response time Warning Under 200ms? Mobile responsiveness Warning Passes mobile-friendly test? Image optimization Info Properly compressed?
Why it matters for AI Bots have crawl budgets. Slow pages may be deprioritized or skipped entirely.
Category 5: Security Weight: 10% of overall grade Ensures your site meets basic security standards.
Check Severity What’s Tested HTTPS Critical Site uses SSL? Mixed content Warning HTTP resources on HTTPS pages? Security headers Info HSTS, X-Frame-Options, etc.? SSL certificate Critical Valid and not expired?
Why it matters for AI HTTPS is a trust signal. Mixed content and security issues can reduce perceived authority.
Severity Levels Level Icon Meaning Action Critical 🔴 Directly prevents AI visibility Fix immediately Warning 🟡 Negatively impacts AI visibility Fix this month Info 🔵 Minor impact or best practice Fix when convenient
Category Interactions Some issues affect multiple categories:
Issue Categories Affected Blocked AI bots Crawlability + Content Structure Missing schema + slow pages Schema + Performance HTTPS + broken links Security + Crawlability Thin content + no schema Content Structure + Schema
Tips
Focus on Critical issues across all categories before addressing WarningsSchema is often the quickest win - Adding markup is straightforward and impactfulPerformance affects everything - A slow site hurts all other categoriesCrawlability is foundational - Fix access issues first; nothing else matters if bots can’t reach youSecurity is table stakes - HTTPS should be non-negotiable in 2025
Related Articles
Understanding Grades How category grades are calculated
Fixing Issues How to resolve audit findings
