What this tool checks, and why each one matters
Most free audit tools run a shallow scan, hide the findings behind an email form, then start a sales sequence. This one shows you everything on screen. Here is what it looks at and why.
What Google is served before JavaScript runs
This is the check almost nothing else runs, and it is the one that catches the most damaging fault. Many modern sites build themselves inside the visitor's browser. A person sees a finished page. The file that actually arrives first can be almost empty.
Google will usually come back and run the code, but that pass is queued and not guaranteed. The crawlers behind ChatGPT, Perplexity and other AI assistants mostly do not run it at all, so they read the raw page, find nothing, and leave. If your site delivers under about 100 words before JavaScript, you cannot be recommended by an AI assistant no matter how good your content is. If this check fails on your site, how the site is built is the root cause, not your content.
Title, description, H1 and canonical
The title is the blue headline in Google's results and still one of the strongest signals of what a page is about. A missing title, a title shared across every page, or one running past about 60 characters all cost you clicks. The H1 is the on-page headline, and having none or having several confuses what the page is about. The canonical tag tells Google which version of a page is the real one, which matters more than most people expect on sites with parameters or duplicate paths.
Structured data
This is the machine-readable summary that states what kind of business you are, where you are, your hours and what you sell, in a form Google reads directly rather than inferring. It feeds map listings, rich results and the answers AI assistants give. Most small business sites have none at all. If yours is missing it, that is usually the cheapest meaningful technical SEO win available.
Sitemap, robots and soft 404s
A sitemap is the index telling Google which pages exist. Without one, and especially on a JavaScript-heavy site, Google discovers pages by guesswork. The soft 404 check is subtler and catches a common misconfiguration: a site that answers "200 OK, here is a valid page" for addresses that do not exist. That lets an unlimited number of fake pages look real, which burns the limited attention Google gives your site and can be read as a low quality signal.
AI crawler access
The tool checks whether your robots file blocks GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot, Google-Extended or OAI-SearchBot. Some sites block these deliberately and that is a legitimate choice. Many block them by accident, usually because a plugin or a template did it, and then wonder why they never appear in AI answers.
Conversion basics
Tap-to-call links, because a large share of local and service business enquiries are people who want to ask one question before they commit, and if calling takes more than one tap many will not bother. Image alt text, because it is both an accessibility requirement and how your photographs become findable in image search.
How to read your results
Read the failed checks in order rather than chasing the score. One critical fault, such as an empty page being served to Google, matters more than ten cosmetic ones. The score is a summary, not a diagnosis.
The most useful thing you can do with this tool is run it on two or three competitors as well as yourself. Every check uses publicly available information, exactly what Google sees, so you can see precisely where you are behind and where you are already ahead.
What this tool cannot tell you
Being honest about the limits matters more than pretending the tool does everything.
- It checks one page, normally your homepage. Your treatment, service or product pages can each have different problems.
- It cannot tell you whether your content is any good, whether anyone is searching for what you sell, or whether your prices are right.
- It cannot see your rankings, your traffic or your competitors' backlinks.
- Passing every check does not mean you will rank. It means nothing technical is standing in your way, which is necessary but not sufficient.
For the parts a tool cannot answer, work out the numbers first. The agency versus in-house cost calculator and my published pricing will tell you what fixing this should reasonably cost, before anybody quotes you.
Frequently asked questions
Is this really free, with no email required?
Yes. The full result appears on screen. I built it this way deliberately, because every free audit tool I tried while researching this held the findings back until I handed over an email address, and then sent a sales sequence instead of an answer.
Will you email me after I run this?
No. The tool does not collect your address. If you want to talk you have to contact me, which is how it should work.
Can I audit a competitor?
Yes, and you probably should. Everything checked is publicly available, exactly what Google sees. Running it on two or three competitors usually teaches you more than running it on yourself once.
My score is high but I still get no traffic. Why?
Because this measures whether your site is technically capable of ranking, not whether it deserves to. If the foundations are sound and nothing is happening, the problem is usually that no page on your site targets what people actually search, or that your competitors have far more of everything. That is a content and strategy question rather than a technical one.
How often should I run this?
After any redesign, any platform migration, and any time traffic drops without explanation. Migrations are where most of these faults get introduced, usually silently.