> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://faii.ai/docs/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# What Is Technical Audit?

> FAII's Technical Health Audit scans your website for SEO and AI-readiness issues that could prevent AI platforms from discovering and recommending your content.

<Info>
  **Quick Answer:** The Technical Audit scans your website for issues that affect both traditional SEO and AI visibility - from broken links to missing schema markup. It grades your site's health and provides actionable fix recommendations.
</Info>

## What You'll Learn

* What the Technical Audit checks
* How it relates to AI visibility
* How grading works
* How often to run audits

## Why Technical Health Matters for AI

AI platforms can only recommend you if:

1. Your content is **crawlable** (bots can access it)
2. Your content is **parseable** (structured for understanding)
3. Your content is **authoritative** (signals of quality)
4. Your content is **fast** (bots skip slow pages)

Technical issues block any of these requirements.

## What Gets Audited

### Crawlability

| Check                   | Why It Matters                                 |
| ----------------------- | ---------------------------------------------- |
| **robots.txt**          | AI bots blocked = no recommendations           |
| **Sitemap**             | Helps bots discover all pages                  |
| **Broken links (404s)** | Bots hitting dead pages is wasted crawl budget |
| **Redirect chains**     | Slow bot access to content                     |
| **Canonical tags**      | Duplicate content confuses AI                  |

### Content Structure

| Check                 | Why It Matters                           |
| --------------------- | ---------------------------------------- |
| **Heading hierarchy** | AI parses H1/H2/H3 for content structure |
| **Meta descriptions** | Help AI understand page purpose          |
| **Title tags**        | Primary content signal for AI            |
| **Image alt text**    | Provides context for visual content      |
| **Content length**    | Thin pages lack authority for citations  |

### Schema & Structured Data

| Check                   | Why It Matters                       |
| ----------------------- | ------------------------------------ |
| **Article schema**      | Tells AI this is published content   |
| **FAQ schema**          | Directly maps Q\&A for AI extraction |
| **Organization schema** | Establishes brand entity             |
| **Breadcrumb schema**   | Shows content hierarchy              |
| **Invalid schema**      | Broken markup worse than no markup   |

### Performance

| Check                     | Why It Matters                    |
| ------------------------- | --------------------------------- |
| **Page load speed**       | Slow pages may be skipped by bots |
| **Core Web Vitals**       | Google ranking signals            |
| **Mobile responsiveness** | Mobile-first indexing             |
| **Server response time**  | Affects bot crawl efficiency      |

### Security

| Check                | Why It Matters                |
| -------------------- | ----------------------------- |
| **HTTPS**            | Required for trust signals    |
| **Mixed content**    | HTTP elements on HTTPS pages  |
| **Security headers** | Overall site security posture |

## How the Audit Works

<Steps>
  <Step title="Initiate scan">
    From your dashboard, go to **Technical Audit** and click **Run Audit** (or it runs on schedule).
  </Step>

  <Step title="Crawl your site">
    FAII's crawler visits your pages, checking each for the issues listed above.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Analyze results">
    Issues are categorized by severity and impact on AI visibility.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Generate report">
    A comprehensive report with grades, issues, and fix recommendations appears in your dashboard.
  </Step>
</Steps>

## Audit Frequency

| Plan         | Audit Frequency |
| ------------ | :-------------: |
| Starter      |     1/month     |
| Professional |    Unlimited    |
| Enterprise   |    Unlimited    |

<Tip>
  Run an audit after any significant website changes (new pages, redesigns, server migrations) to catch issues early.
</Tip>

## The Audit Report

Your report includes:

* **Overall grade** (A+ through F)
* **Category grades** (one per audit category)
* **Issue count** by severity (critical, warning, info)
* **Specific issues** with page URLs and fix instructions
* **Trend** comparison with previous audit

## Tips

* **Fix critical issues first** - They have the highest impact on AI visibility
* **Run after content publishes** - Verify new pages are properly structured
* **Compare audits** - Track improvement between audit runs
* **Don't ignore warnings** - They may become critical over time
* **Share with developers** - The fix instructions are actionable for technical teams

## Related Articles

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="Audit Categories" icon="folder-open" href="/docs/technical-audit/audit-categories">
    Detailed category breakdown
  </Card>

  <Card title="Understanding Grades" icon="graduation-cap" href="/docs/technical-audit/understanding-grades">
    How grading works
  </Card>
</CardGroup>