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From local-seo-audit
Runs a complete technical SEO audit covering crawlability, indexation, structured data, Core Web Vitals, site architecture, and JavaScript rendering readiness.
How this skill is triggered — by the user, by Claude, or both
Slash command
/local-seo-audit:technical-seoThe summary Claude sees in its skill listing — used to decide when to auto-load this skill
Technical SEO is the infrastructure layer that determines whether all other optimization work is visible to Google. A technically broken site cannot rank regardless of content quality or link authority. In 2025, technical SEO has expanded to include three new critical areas: (1) INP (Interaction to Next Paint), which replaced FID as a Core Web Vital in March 2024 — target <200ms; (2) AI renderi...
Technical SEO is the infrastructure layer that determines whether all other optimization work is visible to Google. A technically broken site cannot rank regardless of content quality or link authority. In 2025, technical SEO has expanded to include three new critical areas: (1) INP (Interaction to Next Paint), which replaced FID as a Core Web Vital in March 2024 — target <200ms; (2) AI rendering readiness — Googlebot now renders JavaScript pages before indexing, meaning JS-dependent content must be verified as indexable; (3) GenAI citation readiness — structured data (Organization, FAQPage, HowTo) is the primary mechanism by which Google's AI Overviews and third-party LLMs extract and cite site content. A technically clean site is the prerequisite for AI visibility.
2025 technical SEO benchmarks:
Numbered Action Plan:
python3 scripts/site_crawler.py --url [URL] --max-pages 100 --output {DATA_DIR}/crawl/ --csv. Captures all pages, status codes, titles, meta descriptions, H1s, word counts, internal links. Effort: 30 min setup + crawl time.curl https://domain.com/robots.txt. Check for accidental Disallow: / rule. Verify sitemap URL is listed. Effort: 5 min. Priority: 25 (5×5).http://domain.com (no https) — should 301 redirect to HTTPS. Check SSL expiry date. Effort: 5 min.curl -IL [URL] to trace chains. Any 301→301→200 chain = wasted PageRank. Flatten to direct 301. Effort: 30 min identification + 1–2 hrs dev. Priority: 20.site:domain.com -www. Effort: 1 hr dev.Read {AUDIT_DIR}/intake-data.md for business name, URL, and project paths.
# Run site crawler for comprehensive technical data
python3 scripts/site_crawler.py \
--url [WEBSITE_URL] \
--max-pages 100 \
--output {DATA_DIR}/crawl/ \
--csv
# Validate URL + basic signals
python3 scripts/check_url.py --url [WEBSITE_URL] --full
Use crawler output (crawl-issues-*.json) to populate findings. Supplement with:
Tools for this phase:
| Tool | Purpose | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Screaming Frog SEO Spider | Full site crawl — redirects, canonicals, status codes, schema, headings | Paid/Free (≤500 URLs) |
| Google Search Console | Index coverage, manual actions, Core Web Vitals report, URL inspection | Free (requires access) |
| Ahrefs Site Audit | Crawl health score, broken links, orphan pages, crawl depth issues | Paid |
| SEMrush Site Audit | Technical health score, crawlability, HTTPS, Core Web Vitals | Paid |
| Google Rich Results Test | Schema validation — confirms rich result eligibility per page | Free |
| Schema Markup Validator (validator.schema.org) | Schema syntax validation without rich result eligibility check | Free |
| Lighthouse | CWV, best practices, PWA check — per-page technical baseline | Free |
| Wayback Machine | Historical snapshots — detect major content/structure changes | Free |
Fetch [domain]/robots.txt → check:
User-agent directives (Googlebot, GPTBot, PerplexityBot if desired)?Sitemap: https://domain.com/sitemap.xml)?Disallow: / on production site?Crawl-delay directive set? (optional — Google mostly ignores it)AI crawlers are now as important as Googlebot for visibility. Over 35% of top 1,000 websites inadvertently block at least one major AI crawler (Originality.ai 2025). Check robots.txt for all 14 AI crawlers:
Tier 1 — AI Search (MUST ALLOW for AI visibility):
| Crawler | User-Agent | Operator | Check Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPTBot | GPTBot | OpenAI (ChatGPT Search, 900M+ users) | Allowed / Blocked / Not Mentioned |
| OAI-SearchBot | OAI-SearchBot | OpenAI (search-only, no training) | |
| ChatGPT-User | ChatGPT-User | OpenAI (user-initiated browsing) | |
| ClaudeBot | ClaudeBot | Anthropic (Claude web search) | |
| PerplexityBot | PerplexityBot | Perplexity (best AI referral traffic) |
Tier 2 — AI Ecosystem (RECOMMEND ALLOW):
| Crawler | User-Agent | Operator | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Google-Extended | Google-Extended | Google — Gemini training. Blocking does NOT affect search ranking or AIO appearance. | |
| GoogleOther | GoogleOther | Google — research, experimental features | |
| Applebot-Extended | Applebot-Extended | Apple — Apple Intelligence (2B+ devices) | |
| Amazonbot | Amazonbot | Amazon — Alexa, Amazon AI | |
| FacebookBot | FacebookBot | Meta — Meta AI (3B+ app users) |
Tier 3 — Training Only (strategy-dependent):
| Crawler | User-Agent | Recommendation |
|---|---|---|
| CCBot | CCBot | Context-dependent (Common Crawl training data) |
| anthropic-ai | anthropic-ai | Context-dependent (Claude training, separate from ClaudeBot) |
| Bytespider | Bytespider | BLOCK for most Western businesses (aggressive, low value) |
| cohere-ai | cohere-ai | Context-dependent (enterprise AI training) |
Also check for:
<meta name="robots" content="noai"> on key pages (blocks all AI use)X-Robots-Tag: noai HTTP headers<meta name="GPTBot" content="noindex">AI Crawler Access Score: Tier 1 all allowed = 50 pts; Tier 2 all allowed = 25 pts; no blanket AI blocks = 15 pts; llms.txt present = 10 pts. Total: /100.
IndexNow enables near-instant indexing on Bing/Copilot when content is published or updated. ChatGPT Search also uses Bing's index, so IndexNow benefits both platforms.
| Check | Status |
|---|---|
IndexNow key file at /.well-known/indexnow-key.txt or /[key].txt | Present / Absent |
| IndexNow API integration (pings on publish/update) | Active / Not implemented |
| Bing Webmaster Tools verified | Yes / No |
| Sitemap submitted to Bing | Yes / No |
Implementation: Add IndexNow key file + CMS plugin (WordPress: IndexNow plugin; custom: POST to https://api.indexnow.org/indexnow on content change). Effort: 30 min. Impact: near-instant Bing/Copilot indexation vs. waiting days for natural crawl.
Check for /llms.txt (emerging standard — tells AI systems what content is most useful):
[domain]/llms.txt? → Present / Absent/llms-full.txt? → Present / AbsentFetch /sitemap.xml and /sitemap_index.xml:
| Check | Pass/Fail | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Returns HTTP 200 | ||
| Submitted to GSC | GSC → Sitemaps | |
| Contains all canonical, indexable URLs | ||
| Excludes 404s, 301s, noindex pages | Run Screaming Frog → filter sitemap vs. crawl | |
lastmod dates accurate (not all identical) | Identical = auto-generated = Google ignores | |
| File size <50MB, <50,000 URLs per file | Split into sitemap index if needed | |
| Image sitemap present (for image-heavy sites) | ||
| Auto-updates on new content publish | Plugin or CMS configuration |
site: Operator)site:[domain] → Total indexed pages
site:[domain] -www → www/non-www duplicate check
site:[domain] inurl:? → Parameterized pages being indexed (flag if >10)
Healthy indexed:sitemap ratio: Within 20% (e.g., 50 page sitemap → 40–60 indexed is healthy)
Over-indexed (>120%): orphan pages, parameter variants, staging pages leaking Under-indexed (<80%): crawl budget issues, noindex errors, crawl rate too low
| Issue | Detection | Impact |
|---|---|---|
URL parameters creating duplicates (?sort=, ?session=) | Screaming Frog → filter by ? | High |
| Faceted navigation (1000s of filter combinations) | Manual + site: count | Critical |
| Calendar/date URLs (infinite past/future) | Screaming Frog crawl depth | High |
| Session IDs in URLs | URL pattern check | High |
| Soft 404s (200 status but error content) | GSC → Coverage → Excluded | Medium |
Crawl budget calculation: Google's allowed crawl rate ≈ (server response time in ms × 0.001) pages/second. Sites with TTFB >800ms waste significant crawl budget.
| Check | Pass/Fail | Example Issue |
|---|---|---|
| Lowercase URLs only | /Services/ instead of /services/ | |
| Hyphens as separators (not underscores) | /drain_cleaning/ instead of /drain-cleaning/ | |
| Descriptive, keyword-inclusive paths | /page-1/ instead of /drain-cleaning-chicago/ | |
| No dynamic parameters on canonical pages | /service.php?id=4 instead of /drain-cleaning/ | |
| Consistent trailing slash (all or none) | Mix of /about/ and /about → duplicate | |
| Max 3-click depth for all critical pages | Service pages at depth 5+ |
/services/[service-name]/)?/locations/[city-state]/)?| Check | Pass/Fail | Details |
|---|---|---|
| SSL certificate valid + not expiring within 30 days | Expiry: [date] | |
| All HTTP pages 301 redirect to HTTPS | Test: curl -I http://domain.com | |
| www to non-www (or vice versa) 301 canonical redirect | One canonical version only | |
| No mixed content (HTTP resources on HTTPS pages) | Chrome DevTools → Console → Mixed Content warnings | |
HSTS header (Strict-Transport-Security) | max-age=31536000; includeSubDomains | |
X-Frame-Options or CSP frame-ancestors (clickjacking) | ||
X-Content-Type-Options: nosniff | ||
Referrer-Policy set |
From Screaming Frog → Response Codes → filter 3xx:
| Issue | Count | Impact | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| Redirect chains (A→B→C) | High | Update to direct A→C | |
| Redirect loops (A→B→A) | Critical | Fix immediately | |
| 302 used where 301 needed (permanent moves) | Medium | Change to 301 | |
| Old migration redirects returning 200 at destination? | Low | Verify integrity | |
| Redirects losing URL slug (redirecting to homepage) | High | Fix to correct canonical |
301 vs. 302 rule: 301 = permanent (passes ~99% link equity); 302 = temporary (withholds equity — misuse = ranking loss). All site restructuring must use 301.
From Screaming Frog → Directives → filter Canonical:
| Check | Pass/Fail |
|---|---|
| Self-referencing canonicals on all pages | |
| No conflicting canonical + noindex on same page (contradictory directives) | |
| Parameter variants canonicalize to clean URL | |
Canonical in <head> not body | |
| Canonical matches exactly (HTTPS, www preference, trailing slash) | |
| Cross-domain canonicals (for syndicated content) | |
| Pagination: self-canonical OR canonical to page 1 (depending on uniqueness) |
Validate with: Google Rich Results Test + Schema Markup Validator per page type.
Required for local businesses:
| Schema Type | Present? | Validates? | Rich Result Eligible? | Priority |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| LocalBusiness | ✅/❌ | ✅/❌ | ✅/❌ | Critical |
| Organization (homepage) | ✅/❌ | ✅/❌ | N/A | Critical |
| BreadcrumbList (all inner pages) | ✅/❌ | ✅/❌ | ✅/❌ | High |
| Service (per service page) | ✅/❌ | ✅/❌ | N/A | High |
| FAQPage (service + location pages) | ✅/❌ | ✅/❌ | ✅/❌ | High — AIO trigger |
| AggregateRating (if reviews displayed) | ✅/❌ | ✅/❌ | ✅/❌ | High |
| HowTo (instructional pages) | ✅/❌ | ✅/❌ | ✅/❌ | Medium |
| Article / BlogPosting | ✅/❌ | ✅/❌ | ✅/❌ | Medium |
| VideoObject (if video content) | ✅/❌ | ✅/❌ | ✅/❌ | Medium |
| Person (author pages) | ✅/❌ | ✅/❌ | N/A | Medium |
| Event (if applicable) | ✅/❌ | ✅/❌ | ✅/❌ | Low |
LocalBusiness schema must include: @type, @id (unique URL with fragment), name, url, telephone, address (with all PostalAddress sub-properties), geo (GeoCoordinates), openingHoursSpecification, image, priceRange, sameAs (array), description, hasMap, parentOrganization (not branchOf — deprecated 2025).
FAQPage schema (AIO optimization): Highest-impact schema for AI Overview inclusion — add 3–5 FAQ entries per service and location page targeting "People Also Ask" questions.
| Check | Pass/Fail | Tool |
|---|---|---|
| Meaningful content visible in View Source (no JS required) | View Source | |
| Google renders page correctly | GSC → URL Inspection → View Rendered Page | |
| Navigation links crawlable without JS | Screaming Frog + JS disabled crawl | |
Lazy-loaded images use loading="lazy" with valid src | Screaming Frog → Images | |
| SPA framework: SSR or SSG used? | Check Next.js/Nuxt/Gatsby config | |
| No critical content only in AJAX calls Googlebot can't access | Compare View Source vs. Rendered |
2025 CWV Thresholds (INP replaced FID — March 2024):
| Metric | Good | Needs Improvement | Poor | Target |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| LCP | <1.8s | 1.8–2.5s | >2.5s | <1.8s (aim: <1.2s) |
| INP | <100ms | 100–200ms | >200ms | <100ms (aim: <75ms) |
| CLS | <0.05 | 0.05–0.1 | >0.1 | <0.05 (aim: <0.02) |
| TTFB | <200ms | 200–800ms | >800ms | <200ms |
Current scores from {AUDIT_DIR}/speed-findings.md:
Identify technical root causes — defer detailed fix recommendations to Phase 10 (Speed Optimization).
Common technical CWV causes:
| Issue | Metric Affected | Detection |
|---|---|---|
| No CDN / server far from users | LCP, TTFB | curl -w "%{time_connect}" [URL] |
| Render-blocking CSS/JS | LCP | Lighthouse → Opportunities |
| No image lazy-loading | LCP | Screaming Frog → Images → no loading attribute |
| Layout shifts from images without dimensions | CLS | Lighthouse → Diagnostics |
| Third-party scripts (chat, ads, pixels) | INP, LCP | Lighthouse → Third-party usage |
| No browser caching headers | LCP (repeat visits) | curl -I [URL] → check Cache-Control |
From Screaming Frog → Content → filter by Duplicate/Near-Duplicate:
| Duplicate Type | Count | Action |
|---|---|---|
| Identical page titles | Make unique | |
| Identical meta descriptions | Make unique | |
| Identical page content (same % match) | Consolidate or canonicalize | |
| www vs. non-www (both indexed) | 301 canonical redirect | |
| HTTP vs. HTTPS (both indexed) | Force HTTPS, 301 | |
| Trailing slash variants (both indexed) | Pick one, redirect other | |
| Mobile subdomain (m.domain.com) duplicating main | Implement rel="canonical" + rel="alternate" |
If serving multiple languages or countries:
| Check | Pass/Fail |
|---|---|
hreflang tags implemented per language variant | |
Self-referencing hreflang present | |
x-default pointing to correct fallback | |
| All variants reference each other (reciprocal links) | |
| No conflict between canonical and hreflang (both pointing to same URL) | |
| Consistent implementation: HTML tag OR HTTP header OR sitemap (not mixed) |
Compare technical health against confirmed-clean competitors:
| Signal | Client | Comp 1 | Comp 2 | Benchmark |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lighthouse Performance (mobile) | /100 | /100 | /100 | ≥70 |
| Indexed pages vs. sitemap | ratio | ratio | ratio | Within 20% |
| TTFB | ms | ms | ms | <200ms |
| Schema types implemented | count | count | count | ≥5 types |
| HTTPS score | ✅/❌ | ✅/❌ | ✅/❌ | Clean |
| Broken internal links | count | count | count | 0 |
| Issue | Impact (1–5) | Feasibility (1–5) | Priority | Effort |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Disallow: / in robots.txt (blocks everything) | 5 | 5 | 25 | 5 min |
| SSL expired or HTTP not redirecting | 5 | 5 | 25 | 1–4 hrs |
| Redirect loop | 5 | 4 | 20 | 30–60 min |
| LocalBusiness schema missing or invalid | 4 | 5 | 20 | 1–2 hrs |
| FAQPage schema missing (AIO opportunity) | 4 | 5 | 20 | 30 min/page |
| Sitemap not submitted to GSC | 4 | 5 | 20 | 10 min |
| Orphaned service/location pages | 4 | 5 | 20 | 15 min each |
| INP >200ms (CWV failing) | 4 | 3 | 12 | 4–16 hrs |
| Redirect chains (A→B→C) | 3 | 4 | 12 | 1–2 hrs |
| Mixed content (HTTP on HTTPS) | 3 | 4 | 12 | 1–4 hrs |
| Canonical conflicts (canonical + noindex) | 4 | 4 | 16 | 1–2 hrs |
| JavaScript-only nav (Googlebot can't crawl) | 5 | 3 | 15 | 4–16 hrs |
| Tier 1 AI crawlers blocked in robots.txt | 4 | 5 | 20 | 15 min |
| IndexNow not implemented (Bing/Copilot delay) | 3 | 5 | 15 | 30 min |
| llms.txt missing (AI discoverability gap) | 3 | 4 | 12 | 1–2 hrs |
| JS-rendered content invisible to AI crawlers | 4 | 3 | 12 | 4–8 hrs |
Status: ✅ Pass | ⚠️ Warning | ❌ Fail
Issue: [Specific description with URL examples]
Impact: Critical | High | Medium | Low
Priority Score: [Impact 1-5] × [Feasibility 1-5] = [X]
Fix: [Exact steps — no vague advice]
Effort: Quick Fix (<1hr) | Medium (1-4hrs) | Complex (4+hrs)
Expected Impact: [What changes when fixed]
Competitor Context: [How do top 2 competitors handle this?]
Write to {AUDIT_DIR}/technical-findings.md with YAML frontmatter:
---
skill: audit/technical-seo
phase: 2
date: [YYYY-MM-DD]
business: [Business Name]
url: [URL]
score: [X/100]
status: [healthy|needs-attention|critical]
indexed_pages: [X]
sitemap_pages: [X]
critical_issues: [X]
schema_types: [X]
---
Sections to include:
Key consumers:
audit/speed-optimization — reads for CWV technical root causesaudit/penalty-check — reads for technical manipulation signalslocal/multi-location-seo — URL architecture for multi-locationcross-cutting/serp-trust-auditor — Technical Foundation dimension| Issue | Severity | Effort | Priority | Tool |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| No HTTPS / HTTP accessible | 🔴 Critical | 1–2 hrs dev | 25 | check_url.py + curl |
| Active manual action (GSC) | 🔴 Critical | 2–8 weeks recovery | 25 | Google Search Console |
| Robots.txt blocking crawl | 🔴 Critical | 15 min | 25 | curl robots.txt |
| Missing XML sitemap | 🔴 Critical | 30 min | 20 | Screaming Frog |
| INP >500ms (Core Web Vital) | 🔴 Critical | 4–8 hrs dev | 20 | PageSpeed Insights |
| Duplicate content (www/non-www/http/https) | 🟠 High | 1 hr dev | 20 | Screaming Frog |
| Canonical tag missing or wrong | 🟠 High | 1–2 hrs | 20 | Screaming Frog |
| Redirect chains (3+ hops) | 🟠 High | 2 hrs dev | 16 | curl -IL |
| JavaScript content not rendering | 🟠 High | 4–8 hrs dev | 16 | GSC URL Inspection |
| Missing structured data (LocalBusiness/FAQPage) | 🟠 High | 2–4 hrs | 16 | Rich Results Test |
| Tier 1 AI crawlers blocked (GPTBot/ClaudeBot/PerplexityBot) | 🟠 High | 15 min | 20 | curl robots.txt |
| IndexNow not configured (Bing/Copilot freshness) | 🟡 Medium | 30 min | 15 | Check /.well-known/indexnow-key.txt |
| llms.txt absent | 🟡 Medium | 1–2 hrs | 12 | curl /llms.txt |
| Broken internal links (4xx) | 🟡 Medium | 30 min | 15 | Screaming Frog |
| Missing hreflang (multi-region) | 🟡 Medium | 2–4 hrs dev | 12 | Screaming Frog |
| LCP >4.0s | 🟠 High | 2–4 hrs | 16 | PageSpeed Insights |
| CLS >0.25 | 🟡 Medium | 1–2 hrs | 15 | PageSpeed Insights |
Technical SEO directly affects E-E-A-T trust scoring:
GBP "Website" button sends high-intent traffic. Technical issues on the landing page lose this traffic:
npx claudepluginhub mshahiddigital/agentic-local-seo-auditAudits crawlability, indexing, Core Web Vitals, robots.txt, sitemaps, canonicals, redirects, and site migrations with scored results and a prioritized fix roadmap.
Runs a 9-category technical SEO audit covering crawlability, indexability, security, Core Web Vitals, structured data, and AI crawler management. Useful for diagnosing crawl issues, robots.txt problems, and site speed.
Runs a technical SEO audit across 9 categories including crawlability, indexability, security, Core Web Vitals, and structured data. Includes AI crawler management guidance for robots.txt.