16 checks · evidence · owners

A Technical SEO Checklist Your Team Can Act On

Short answer

Mark every check as Pass, Fail or Not tested, rate its severity, attach evidence from an official tool, and give it an owner. Start with crawl access and indexing, compare raw and rendered HTML, then move to canonicals, page experience and structured data.

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How the checklist works

Four fields turn a list into a plan.

◐

Status

Pass, Fail or Not tested. Nothing passes without evidence.

PassFailNot tested
▲

Severity

How much a failure blocks crawling, indexing or users.

CriticalHighMedium
▣

Evidence

A dated screenshot, export or report from an official or trusted tool.

◉

Owner

One named role responsible for the next action and the re-test.

0%tested
0Pass
0Fail
16Not tested
0Critical fails
01CriticalCrawl access

Important pages and their CSS/JS are not blocked by robots.txt

Evidence: URL Inspection shows “Crawl allowed? Yes” for each key template; robots.txt report has no errors. Google: robots.txt introduction

02HighCrawl access

Key pages return HTTP 200; removed pages return 404/410 or redirect

Evidence: Crawl export of status codes for all sitemap and linked URLs, dated. Google: technical requirements

03HighCrawl access

Firewall, CDN or bot protection does not block Googlebot

Evidence: URL Inspection live test succeeds; server or CDN logs show Googlebot requests answered with 200. Google: technical requirements

04CriticalIndexing

No accidental noindex on pages that should appear in Search

Evidence: URL Inspection “Indexing allowed? Yes” for key templates. Note: if robots.txt blocks a page, Google cannot see its noindex. Search Console Help: URL Inspection

05HighIndexing

Page indexing report reviewed; exclusion reasons for key pages understood

Evidence: Screenshot of the Page indexing report with reasons for any excluded service or product pages. Search Console Help: URL Inspection

06MediumIndexing

XML sitemap lists only canonical, indexable, 200 URLs and is submitted

Evidence: Sitemaps report shows “Success”; sample of 20 sitemap URLs all return 200 and self-canonicalise. Google: sitemaps overview

07HighCanonicals

Each page declares one canonical pointing to the preferred 200 URL

Evidence: URL Inspection: user-declared canonical matches Google-selected canonical for key pages. Google: consolidate duplicate URLs

08HighCanonicals

HTTP→HTTPS and www/non-www variants redirect permanently to one version

Evidence: Header check of all four variants showing a single 301 hop to the preferred URL. Google: consolidate duplicate URLs

09MediumCanonicals

robots.txt and noindex are not used to choose canonicals

Evidence: Review of robots.txt and noindex rules against duplicate URL patterns. Google: consolidate duplicate URLs

10CriticalRaw vs rendered

Main content is present in the rendered HTML

Evidence: URL Inspection › View crawled page › HTML contains the main heading and body copy of each template. Google: JavaScript SEO basics

11HighRaw vs rendered

Navigation and internal links are <a> elements with an href

Evidence: Rendered HTML sample: menu, footer and in-content links use <a href>, not click handlers. Google: JavaScript SEO basics

12HighRaw vs rendered

Title, meta robots and canonical match in raw and rendered HTML

Evidence: Side-by-side of view-source and rendered HTML for each template; differences listed. Google: JavaScript SEO basics

13MediumPage experience

Core Web Vitals field data: LCP ≤ 2.5 s, INP < 200 ms, CLS < 0.1

Evidence: Core Web Vitals report (field data) screenshot for mobile and desktop, with URL groups failing. Google: Core Web Vitals

14HighPage experience

All pages served over HTTPS without mixed-content warnings

Evidence: Crawl export filtered for http:// resources on https:// pages. Google: page experience

15MediumPage experience

Mobile pages have the same main content and usable layout

Evidence: Mobile rendered screenshot per template compared with desktop. Google: page experience

16MediumStructured data

Structured data describes visible content and validates

Evidence: Rich Results Test or Schema validator output per template; each marked item is visible on the page. Google: structured data policies

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Raw vs rendered

The page you see is not always the page Google receives.

Raw HTML is what the server sends. Rendered HTML is what exists after JavaScript runs. Google says content missing from the rendered HTML cannot be indexed, and links are only discovered from <a> elements with an href.

<head>  <title>Web Development | MTI Tech</title>  <link rel="canonical" href="https://mtitech.co/web-development">  <link rel="canonical" href="https://mtitech.co/">  ← changed by script</head><body>  <div id="app"></div>  ← empty until JavaScript runs  <div id="app"><h1>Web Development Services</h1><p>…</p></div>  <span onclick="go('/pricing')">Pricing</span>  ← not a crawlable link</body>
  • Content only after rendering

    Acceptable if Google renders it, but check the rendered HTML in URL Inspection to confirm the main content is there.

  • Canonical changed by JavaScript

    The raw and rendered pages disagree. Put the correct canonical in the raw HTML and keep it unchanged.

  • Click handler instead of a link

    Google discovers links from <a href> elements. Replace spans and buttons used for navigation.

See raw

Browser view-source, or a crawler with JavaScript rendering off.

See rendered

Search Console URL Inspection › View crawled page › HTML, or the Rich Results Test.

Source

Google: JavaScript SEO basics

Evidence standards

“Looks fine” is not evidence.

Good evidence is dated, specific to a URL or template, and comes from a tool someone else can re-run.

Weak

“Sitemap is fine.”

Strong

“Sitemaps report, 28 Sep 2026: status Success, 142 URLs discovered; 20-URL sample all return 200.”

Weak

“Pages are indexed.”

Strong

“URL Inspection for /services/web-development/: URL is on Google; user-declared and Google-selected canonical match.”

Weak

“Speed is good.”

Strong

“Core Web Vitals report, mobile, field data: 0 poor URLs; 3 URL groups need improvement for LCP.”

What to fix first

A simple triage order.

  1. 1Critical fails

    Anything that stops key pages being crawled, rendered or indexed.

  2. 2High fails

    Wrong canonicals, broken redirects, blocked resources, HTTPS problems.

  3. 3Not tested

    Collect evidence before assuming anything passes.

  4. 4Medium fails

    Page experience, sitemap hygiene and structured data.

  5. 5Re-test and date

    Every fix gets a new piece of evidence and a date.

Google notes that good Core Web Vitals results do not guarantee top rankings, and relevance still comes first. Google: page experience

FAQs

Technical SEO questions

Short answers, grounded in Google’s documentation.

Technical SEO is the work that lets search engines crawl, render and index a site correctly: access, status codes, canonical URLs, rendering, page experience and structured data. It removes barriers; it does not replace useful content.

Review the critical and high checks at least quarterly, and re-run the full checklist after a redesign, platform migration, template change or major plugin update.

It can remove problems that stop pages from being crawled, indexed or served well. Google notes that good Core Web Vitals results do not guarantee top rankings, and it always seeks to show the most relevant content.

It means nobody has collected evidence yet. A check without evidence should never be marked as passed, even if the site looks fine.

Yes. MTI Tech can run this checklist, record the evidence, assign owners and implement fixes as part of our SEO services.

Keep reading
Guide

Google AI Overviews & AI Mode

Read → Comparison

SEO vs AEO: Shared Foundations

Read → Service

SEO services and technical audits

See the service →
Official documentation
  1. Google Search Central: Technical requirements
  2. Google Search Central: Introduction to robots.txt
  3. Search Console Help: URL Inspection tool
  4. Google Search Central: Consolidate duplicate URLs
  5. Google Search Central: JavaScript SEO basics
  6. Google Search Central: Sitemaps overview
  7. Google Search Central: Core Web Vitals
  8. Google Search Central: Page experience
  9. Google Search Central: Structured data policies
Technical SEO audit

Want the evidence collected for you?

We run the checks, attach the proof, assign owners and fix what fails. For the reasoning behind each check and an example issue log, read our technical SEO audit blueprint.

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