Set the audit scope
Define the production hosts, staging constraints, important templates and preferred URL format. Record access limitations before collecting data.
Build a representative crawl
Use normal browser rendering where the site requires it, but keep a raw HTML sample for comparison. Include XML sitemap URLs and known priority pages.
Diagnose by system
Separate discovery, response handling, indexability, canonicalization, rendering and enhancement markup. This keeps one root cause from becoming several duplicate tickets.
Prioritize with evidence
Consider business-critical templates, affected canonical pages and implementation risk. Avoid severity labels that are not supported by observable impact.
Validate the release
Every recommendation needs a test. Re-crawl affected templates, inspect rendered examples and monitor indexation evidence after deployment.
Use the Technical SEO Audit Skill for a reusable audit prompt and output structure.