Crawlability & indexing
- robots.txt isn't blocking anything it shouldn't — a single misplaced
Disallowcan deindex an entire section without an obvious error anywhere else. - An XML sitemap is submitted in Google Search Console and only lists canonical, indexable URLs — not redirects, 404s or noindexed pages.
- No accidental
noindextags left over from staging or a CMS default template. - Canonical tags are self-referencing and consistent — no page pointing its canonical at a different URL than the one it's served on, unless that's intentional.
- No orphan pages — every real page is reachable through internal links, not just the sitemap.
Core Web Vitals & page experience
- LCP (Largest Contentful Paint) under 2.5 seconds — usually the biggest hero image or block of text; compress and lazy-load what's below the fold.
- INP (Interaction to Next Paint) under 200ms — heavy JavaScript blocking the main thread is the usual culprit.
- CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift) under 0.1 — reserve explicit width/height on images and embeds so content doesn't jump as it loads.
- Mobile usability passes clean in Search Console — most Indian search traffic is mobile-first, and Google indexes the mobile version primarily.
- HTTPS everywhere, no mixed-content warnings — an http:// image or script on an https:// page still triggers a browser warning.
Structured data
- Organization and WebSite schema on the homepage, validated with Google's Rich Results Test — not just present, but actually valid JSON-LD.
- Page-type-specific schema where it applies — Product for ecommerce, FAQPage for FAQ content, BreadcrumbList sitewide, LocalBusiness only if the claims in it (address, hours, reviews) are real and verifiable.
- No schema claiming something the page doesn't show — a ratings schema with no visible reviews is a common cause of a Google manual action, not a ranking boost.
Duplicate content & URL hygiene
- One canonical version of every URL — www vs. non-www, trailing slash vs. none, and http vs. https should all 301-redirect to a single consistent version, not exist as separate crawlable duplicates.
- Redirects go directly to the final URL, not through a chain of three or four hops — each hop dilutes signal and slows the crawl.
- A real, useful 404 page exists, rather than every dead link silently returning a 200 status (a soft-404, which confuses Google about what's actually missing).
How Apensia runs this in practice
This checklist is the actual first pass of Apensia's technical SEO audit (₹15,000, one-off) — a Search Console and site crawl against every item above, with a written report of what's broken and what it's likely costing in rankings, before any ongoing SEO work starts. A backlink audit (₹15,000–₹25,000) is a separate, complementary check specifically for the site's link profile.
FAQ
How often should a technical SEO audit be repeated?
At least once a year for a stable site, and immediately after a major redesign, CMS migration or domain change — those are the events most likely to silently break canonical tags, redirects or crawlability.
Can fixing technical SEO issues alone improve rankings?
It removes ceilings rather than raising rankings by itself — a page that can't be crawled or indexed properly can't rank no matter how good its content is, but fixing the technical layer doesn't replace the content and authority work needed to actually outrank competitors.
What's the single highest-impact item on this checklist for most small sites?
Core Web Vitals, specifically LCP — slow-loading pages are extremely common on small business sites (usually from unoptimized images) and directly affect both rankings and how many visitors stay long enough to convert.
Media contact: apensiapr@gmail.com · +91 81468 55589
Checklist criteria reflect Google's own published Search Central documentation on Core Web Vitals, structured data and canonicalization (developers.google.com/search) as of September 2026. Apensia service pricing from apensia.in/seo-company-in-chandigarh.html and apensia.in/backlink-audit.html.