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Running a Technical Audit

Start an Audit

  1. Go to Technical Audit
  2. Click “Start New Audit”
  3. Enter your website URL
  4. Moonrank crawls your site (5-30 minutes depending on size)
  5. View results immediately when complete

Continuous Monitoring

  • Set audits to run automatically (weekly, monthly)
  • Get alerts when new issues are detected
  • Track if issues are fixed over time

Issue Categories

Critical Issues (Fix Immediately)

These prevent Google from accessing your site:
  • No SSL Certificate - Your site isn’t HTTPS (required for ranking)
  • Not Mobile Responsive - Site doesn’t work on mobile devices
  • Noindex Tag - Your pages tell Google not to index them
  • Robots.txt Blocks Content - Website blocks Google’s crawler

High Priority Issues (Fix Within 1 Week)

These significantly impact rankings:
  • Duplicate Content - Same content on multiple URLs confuses Google
  • Missing Meta Descriptions - Important for CTR from search results
  • Broken Links - Internal links leading to 404 pages
  • Slow Page Speed - Google ranks faster sites higher
  • Missing H1 Tags - Heading structure is important for relevance

Medium Priority Issues (Fix Within 1 Month)

These moderately impact rankings:
  • Missing Alt Tags - Images should have descriptions
  • Redirects Chains - Multiple redirects slow down crawling
  • Thin Content - Pages with very little content
  • Orphan Pages - Pages with no internal links to them

Low Priority Issues (Address When Possible)

These have minimal ranking impact:
  • Warnings about best practices
  • Suggestions for improvements
  • Informational messages

Understanding Your Audit Report

Health Score

Overall score (0-100) indicating your site’s technical health:
  • 80-100: Great condition
  • 60-79: Good, but room for improvement
  • 40-59: Needs attention
  • 0-39: Critical issues to fix

Pages Scanned

  • Total pages crawled
  • Pages with issues
  • Pages indexed by Google
  • Pages excluded from index

Crawlability

  • Can Google crawl your site?
  • Are there blocks preventing access?
  • How deep can Google crawl (number of levels)?

Issue Details & Fixes

For Each Issue, Moonrank Shows

  1. Description - What the issue is
  2. Impact - How much it affects SEO
  3. Affected Pages - Which pages have this issue
  4. How to Fix - Step-by-step solution
  5. Priority - How urgent it is to fix

Common Issues & Fixes

Issue: Slow Page Speed
  • Run Google PageSpeed Insights
  • Compress images
  • Enable caching
  • Minimize CSS/JavaScript
  • Use a CDN Issue: Missing Meta Descriptions
  • Each page should have unique 150-160 character description
  • Use target keywords naturally
  • Include a call-to-action Issue: Duplicate Content
  • Use canonical tags to indicate preferred version
  • Implement 301 redirects
  • Use parameters correctly in Google Search Console Issue: Broken Links
  • Update or remove links pointing to 404 pages
  • Fix links to redirected pages
  • Test links regularly

Monitoring Progress

Audit History

  • View all historical audits
  • See which issues were fixed
  • Compare site health over time
  • Get credit for improvements
  • Which issues are most common
  • Are you fixing issues faster than new ones appear?
  • Overall improvement trajectory

Best Practices Recommendations

Beyond issues, Moonrank recommends optimizations:
  • Structured Data - Add schema markup for rich snippets
  • Mobile Optimization - Improve mobile experience
  • Core Web Vitals - Optimize Largest Contentful Paint, First Input Delay, Cumulative Layout Shift
  • XML Sitemaps - Submit XML sitemaps to Google
  • Robots.txt - Allow Google access to important content

Competitive Analysis

Compare Your Audit to Competitors

  • View competitor audit scores
  • See which technical issues they have
  • Benchmark your technical health against competitors

Export & Integration

Export Audit Results

  • Download full audit report as PDF
  • Export to CSV for spreadsheet analysis
  • Share with developers or IT team

Integration with Tools

  • Send fixes to your development team’s Slack
  • Create tickets in Jira automatically
  • Update Google Search Console with status