Free SEO audit: the six passes, in order
Last reviewed and updated
An SEO audit is only useful when it runs in dependency order. This page walks the six passes — crawl access, indexation, on-page tags, content, links, then speed and monitoring — and links the free tool that performs each check in your browser.
Work top to bottom the first time. Later audits usually only need passes one, three and six.
Live site audit
Enter your domain. ToolForge crawls up to ten pages — starting from your sitemap when one exists — and reports the titles, meta descriptions, headings, robots.txt and sitemap state, plus every link that fails to respond. Everything shown is read from live responses.
11. Confirm the site can be crawled
An audit that starts with content wastes time when the crawler never reaches the page. Fetch the site the way a bot does, check robots.txt for accidental blanket blocks, and confirm the sitemap lists only canonical 200-status URLs.
Note anything that renders only after JavaScript executes: if the primary navigation or body copy is missing from the raw response, treat those links as undiscovered.
Tools for this pass
Tools marked Live open a working workspace that runs entirely in your browser — start with Robots.txt Generator and XML Sitemap Generator.
Go deeper
- Technical SEO guide — The deeper version of the crawl and indexation checks.
22. Check indexation and duplicates
Test your money pages individually. A page can be crawled and still dropped for duplicating another URL, carrying a stray noindex, or being too thin to earn a slot.
List the URLs that should never be indexed — internal search, empty tag archives, staging copies — and verify they are actually excluded rather than merely unlinked.
Tools for this pass
These checks need a data provider connected. For a live measurement right now, run the SEO dashboard audit against the same URL.
33. Audit titles, meta and headings
Read the markup search engines read first. Every indexable page needs a unique title under about 60 characters, a description that earns the click, one H1, and social tags so shared links look deliberate.
Duplicated titles across a template are the single most common finding in a first audit.
Tools for this pass
Tools marked Live open a working workspace that runs entirely in your browser — start with Meta Tag Generator and Open Graph Generator.
Go deeper
- On-page SEO guide — How to write tags, headings and internal links that rank.
44. Grade the content itself
Measure length, repetition and originality against the pages currently ranking. Thin or near-duplicate copy is why technically clean pages stall on page three.
Check keyword density for accidental stuffing, and confirm each page answers a distinct question rather than restating a sibling page.
Tools for this pass
Tools marked Live open a working workspace that runs entirely in your browser — start with Word Counter and Keyword Density Checker.
55. Audit internal and external links
Sweep for broken links after any migration, then look at how link equity flows internally: important pages should be reachable in a couple of clicks with descriptive anchors.
Externally, review who links to you and how they anchor it, and compare your referring-domain profile with the sites ranking above you.
Tools for this pass
These checks need a data provider connected. For a live measurement right now, run the SEO dashboard audit against the same URL.
Go deeper
- Link building guide — Turn audit gaps into an outreach shortlist.
66. Measure speed, mobile and monitoring
Finish with performance and mobile rendering, then set a re-run cadence. Most audit findings return with the next deployment, so a single audit is a snapshot, not a fix.
Score the page, compress the heaviest asset, and keep uptime and status checks in the same routine.
Tools for this pass
Tools marked Live open a working workspace that runs entirely in your browser — start with Image Compressor.
Go deeper
- SEO dashboard — Live page score, rank checks and backlink verification.
- Domain report — Site-level metrics, backlinks and competitor rankings.
Related tools
The six checks that surface the most findings on a first audit.
Frequently asked questions
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