Technical SEO Triage Checklist

When to use this checklist

Use this checklist when you need to quickly assess a site's technical SEO health. This is useful for new sites you are evaluating, after a site migration, or when you suspect technical issues are limiting performance.

This is a triage checklist, not a comprehensive audit. It identifies the most impactful issues quickly so you can prioritize fixes.

Crawling and access

Robots.txt review.

• Can Googlebot access all important page types?
• Are CSS and JavaScript files accessible (not blocked)?
• Are there overly broad Disallow rules?
• Is the sitemap referenced in robots.txt?

XML sitemap.

• Does a sitemap exist and is it accessible?
• Does it include all important pages?
• Does it exclude pages that should not be indexed (admin, search results, thin pages)?
• Is it submitted in Google Search Console?
• Are the URLs in the sitemap returning 200 status codes?

Crawl errors.

• Check GSC Pages report for server errors (5xx)
• Check for redirect errors (loops, chains)
• Check for soft 404s
• Note the volume: a few errors are normal, hundreds indicate a systemic issue

Indexing

Index coverage.

• How many pages are indexed vs how many should be?
• Are important pages in the "not indexed" list?
• What are the top exclusion reasons?

Canonical configuration.

• Do pages have self-referencing canonical tags?
• Are canonical tags pointing to the correct URLs (HTTPS, correct domain variant)?
• Are there pages where Google chose a different canonical than the one specified?

Duplicate content.

• Are there URL parameter variations being indexed?
• Are both www and non-www versions accessible?
• Are both HTTP and HTTPS versions accessible?
• Are trailing slash and non-trailing slash versions both accessible?

Rendering

JavaScript dependency.

• Does the site use client-side rendering (React, Vue, Angular SPA)?
• Use URL Inspection to check if Google sees the rendered content
• Are critical content elements visible in the raw HTML or only after JavaScript execution?

Resource loading.

• Are any critical resources blocked by robots.txt?
• Do third-party scripts block rendering?
• Are there JavaScript errors in the console that could affect rendering?

Performance

Core Web Vitals.

• Check GSC Core Web Vitals report for failing URLs
• Note which metric is failing (LCP, INP, CLS)
• Check both mobile and desktop

Server response time.

• Is the Time to First Byte (TTFB) under 500ms?
• Is response time consistent or does it spike?

Mobile experience.

• Is the site responsive?
• Is text readable without zooming?
• Are tap targets appropriately sized?
• Does the mobile version contain the same content as desktop?

Site structure

URL structure.

• Are URLs clean and descriptive?
• Is the hierarchy logical and consistent?
• Are important pages reachable within 3 clicks from the homepage?

Internal linking.

• Are there orphan pages (no incoming internal links)?
• Do important pages have sufficient internal links?
• Are there broken internal links (linking to 404 pages)?

Redirects.

• Are there redirect chains (more than one hop)?
• Are old URLs properly redirected?
• Are there any redirect loops?

Security and trust

HTTPS.

• Is the entire site served over HTTPS?
• Are there mixed content warnings (HTTP resources on HTTPS pages)?
• Is the SSL certificate valid and not expiring soon?

Structured data.

• Is schema markup present on appropriate pages?
• Does it validate without errors (use Google's Rich Results Test)?
• Are the most relevant schema types implemented (Organization, Article, Product, FAQ, etc.)?

Scoring the triage

After completing the checklist, categorize issues:

Critical (fix immediately): Crawl blocks on important pages, site-wide noindex, server errors, HTTPS issues, rendering failures hiding content.

High priority (fix this week): Index bloat, canonical issues, Core Web Vitals failures, broken internal links to important pages.

Medium priority (fix this month): Missing schema markup, suboptimal URL structure, minor redirect chains, missing sitemap entries.

Low priority (fix when convenient): Minor performance optimizations, cosmetic URL improvements, non-critical schema additions.

Practical takeaway

A technical triage should take 30 to 60 minutes. The goal is not to find every issue but to identify the issues that are actually limiting performance. Fix critical and high-priority issues first. Many medium and low-priority issues can wait or may not need fixing at all.