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All lessons in Technical SEO Auditing Lesson 7.1 of 84

Module 1: Introduction to Technical SEO Auditing

  1. 1.1What Is a Technical SEO Audit?
  2. 1.2Technical SEO Audit vs. General SEO Audit
  3. 1.3When Should You Audit a Website?
  4. 1.4Types of Technical SEO Issues
  5. 1.5Defining Audit Scope and Objectives

Module 2: Website Crawling and URL Discovery

  1. 2.1How SEO Crawlers Discover URLs
  2. 2.2Configuring a Website Crawl
  3. 2.3Crawl Scope, Limits, and Exclusions
  4. 2.4Internal Links and Crawl Depth
  5. 2.5Orphan Pages and URL Discovery
  6. 2.6Crawl Data vs. Search Engine Data
  7. 2.7Identifying Crawl Coverage Gaps

Module 3: HTTP Status Codes and Redirect Auditing

  1. 3.1Understanding HTTP Status Codes
  2. 3.2Finding 4xx Errors and Broken Links
  3. 3.3Identifying 5xx Server Errors
  4. 3.4Redirect Chains and Redirect Loops
  5. 3.5Internal Links to Redirected URLs
  6. 3.6301 vs. 302 Redirects
  7. 3.7Auditing 404 Pages and Soft 404s

Module 4: Crawlability and Indexability Auditing

  1. 4.1Crawling vs. Indexing
  2. 4.2Robots.txt Audit
  3. 4.3Meta Robots and X-Robots-Tag
  4. 4.4Noindex and Canonical Conflicts
  5. 4.5XML Sitemap Validation
  6. 4.6Canonical URL Auditing
  7. 4.7Identifying Indexability Conflicts
  8. 4.8Comparing Crawl Data with Google Search Console

Module 5: URL Structure and Duplicate Content Issues

  1. 5.1URL Structure and Normalization
  2. 5.2Duplicate URLs and Duplicate Pages
  3. 5.3HTTP vs. HTTPS and Hostname Variations
  4. 5.4Trailing Slashes and URL Parameters
  5. 5.5Pagination and Faceted Navigation
  6. 5.6Canonicalization Strategies
  7. 5.7Internal Linking to Preferred URLs

Module 6: Technical On-Page Auditing

  1. 6.1Missing and Duplicate Title Tags
  2. 6.2Missing and Duplicate Meta Descriptions
  3. 6.3Missing, Duplicate, and Multiple H1 Headings
  4. 6.4Heading Hierarchy and HTML Structure
  5. 6.5Missing Image Alt Attributes
  6. 6.6Internal Link and Anchor Text Issues
  7. 6.7Empty, Thin, and Near-Duplicate Pages
  8. 6.8Auditing HTML Metadata at Scale

Module 7: Website Performance and Core Web Vitals

  1. 7.1Core Web Vitals: LCP, INP, and CLS
  2. 7.2Lab Data vs. Field Data
  3. 7.3Identifying Slow Pages
  4. 7.4Image and Resource Optimization Opportunities
  5. 7.5JavaScript and CSS Performance
  6. 7.6Mobile Usability and Responsive Rendering
  7. 7.7Prioritizing Performance Fixes

Module 8: JavaScript SEO and Rendering

  1. 8.1How Search Engines Process JavaScript
  2. 8.2HTML Source vs. Rendered HTML
  3. 8.3Client-Side vs. Server-Side Rendering
  4. 8.4JavaScript-Generated Content and Links
  5. 8.5Rendering Failures and Missing Content
  6. 8.6Lazy Loading and Crawl Accessibility
  7. 8.7Diagnosing JavaScript SEO Problems

Module 9: Structured Data and Schema Auditing

  1. 9.1Structured Data and Schema.org Basics
  2. 9.2JSON-LD and Structured Data Formats
  3. 9.3Finding Structured Data Across a Website
  4. 9.4Detecting Invalid or Incomplete Markup
  5. 9.5Schema Validation and Rich Result Eligibility
  6. 9.6Conflicting or Duplicate Structured Data
  7. 9.7Prioritizing Schema Fixes

Module 10: Analyzing Audit Data and Prioritizing Issues

  1. 10.1Reading Crawl Reports and Exports
  2. 10.2Grouping URLs by Issue Type
  3. 10.3Identifying Root Causes vs. Symptoms
  4. 10.4Evaluating Severity, Impact, and Effort
  5. 10.5Separating Sitewide and Isolated Issues
  6. 10.6Identifying False Positives
  7. 10.7Building an Actionable Issue Register

Module 11: Technical SEO Audit Reporting

  1. 11.1Structuring a Technical SEO Audit Report
  2. 11.2Documenting Evidence and Affected URLs
  3. 11.3Writing Developer-Ready Recommendations
  4. 11.4Mapping Issues to Business and Search Impact
  5. 11.5Creating a Prioritized Remediation Roadmap
  6. 11.6Presenting Findings to Stakeholders
  7. 11.7Tracking Fixes and Ownership

Module 12: Fix Verification and Technical QA

  1. 12.1Re-Crawling After Fixes
  2. 12.2Comparing Before-and-After Crawl Results
  3. 12.3Verifying Redirects, Canonicals, and Indexability
  4. 12.4Detecting Regressions and Newly Introduced Issues
  5. 12.5Testing Website Changes Before Deployment
  6. 12.6Confirming Fixes with Search Console and Other Evidence
  7. 12.7Closing Audit Findings and Recording Results

Core Web Vitals: LCP, INP, and CLS

Inside this lesson

  • What each Core Web Vital measures
  • The good, needs improvement, and poor thresholds
  • The most common causes of poor scores
  • How much Core Web Vitals matter for rankings

Short answer

Core Web Vitals are Google's three user experience metrics. LCP measures loading, with good at 2.5 seconds or less. INP measures responsiveness, with good at 200 milliseconds or less. CLS measures visual stability, with good at 0.1 or less. Google assesses them at the 75th percentile of real user visits.

Picture a visitor on prepaid mobile data in Tabaco City opening your menu page. How long until the main photo appears? When they tap “Order,” does anything happen right away? Does the button jump just as they press it? Those three experiences are LCP, INP, and CLS.

The three metrics

MetricMeasuresGoodNeeds improvementPoor
LCPLoading≤ 2.5 s2.5 to 4 s> 4 s
INPResponsiveness≤ 200 ms200 to 500 ms> 500 ms
CLSVisual stability≤ 0.10.1 to 0.25> 0.25

A page passes when all three are “good” at the 75th percentile of real visits.

Common causes

Poor LCP: slow server response, huge hero images, render-blocking CSS and JavaScript, the LCP image loaded lazily or late.

Poor INP: heavy JavaScript running on the main thread, large third-party scripts (chat widgets, ad tags), complex page builders.

Poor CLS: images without width and height, ads and embeds without reserved space, late-loading fonts, banners injected above content.

Where it fits in the audit

Core Web Vitals are one part of page experience, along with HTTPS and mobile friendliness. They rarely outrank relevance, but they affect conversions directly. In audits, report them by template, with real user data first (next lesson).

Practice: which metric is affected?

Sort each item into the right group.

  • 4 MB hero image

  • Ad loads and pushes the article down

  • Tapping 'Add to cart' freezes for a second

  • Slow server response time

  • Images without width and height

  • Heavy chat widget script

Common mistakes

  • Treating Core Web Vitals as the top ranking factor.
  • Optimizing desktop only. Most Philippine traffic is mobile.
  • Fixing single URLs instead of templates.
1. What is the good threshold for LCP?
2. Which metric replaced FID?
3. Content jumps when an ad loads. Which metric?

Your action

Next, you will learn the difference between lab data and field data.

Key terms

LCP (Largest Contentful Paint)
Time until the largest visible image or text block in the viewport finishes rendering.
INP (Interaction to Next Paint)
How quickly the page visually responds to clicks, taps, and key presses, based on the slowest typical interaction.
CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift)
A score for how much visible content unexpectedly moves while the page is used.
75th percentile
The value that 75% of real visits meet or beat. Google uses it to judge whether a page passes.

Questions beginners ask

How much do Core Web Vitals affect rankings?

They are part of page experience signals, but relevance and content quality matter far more. Treat them as a tiebreaker and a user experience goal.

Did INP replace FID?

Yes. INP replaced First Input Delay as a Core Web Vital in March 2024.

Do all pages need to pass?

Aim for important templates to pass on mobile. Google groups similar URLs, so template fixes move many pages at once.

Where do I see my scores?

Search Console's Core Web Vitals report for groups of URLs, and PageSpeed Insights for individual URLs.

Related lessons

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