SpyFu has long been a go-to for competitive intelligence and keyword research. The Site Audit tool brings that same focus on actionable outcomes to technical SEO — giving you a clear picture of what's happening on your site and a faster path to fixing it.
This is the pattern of our site audit: Crawl → Analyze → Prioritize → Generate Recommendations → Implement Improvements.
Rather than handing you a long list of issues and leaving you to figure out what to do next, Site Audit is designed to move you from discovery to action.
What SpyFu's Site Audit Covers
Site Audit runs a comprehensive crawl of your website and checks for issues across every major SEO category:
Technical SEO — crawlability issues, insecure HTTP references, and structural problems that affect how search engines access your site
Metadata — missing, duplicate, or poorly optimized title tags and meta descriptions
Content quality — thin content, duplicate content, and opportunities to strengthen what's already there
Internal linking — orphan pages, weak internal link structure, and opportunities to build up your on-site connections
Sitemaps — whether your sitemap is discoverable, consistent, and includes all the right pages
Accessibility-related SEO — alt text gaps and other issues that affect both users and search visibility
Broken links — internal and external links that lead nowhere, plus any insecure HTTP references
The goal isn't just to report a mountain of issues — it's to give you a complete, accurate picture of your site's health and include next-steps that are easy to act on.
We use target keywords in our site audits so that every improvement is created with a focus on your site's visibility. (We'll cover Target Keywords later on.)
No one runs a site audit just to find issues. The point is to improve your site. That's been our roadmap while designing how this audit works.
Prioritization: What to Fix First
One of the most common friction points in site auditing is staring at dozens (or hundreds) of flagged issues and not knowing which ones actually matter. Site Audit handles this with built-in prioritization.
Issues are organized by severity (Errors, Warnings, Notices) and also by what kind of action they require:
Auto-Fixable — issues that Site Audit can resolve for you with one click, once the JS snippet is installed. No code changes required on your end.
Review Issues — issues where Site Audit surfaces the problem and a suggested fix, but you make the call on whether and how to apply it.
Developer Fix Issues — issues that require changes to your site's code or server configuration. "Developer Fix" doesn't necessarily mean you need to hire someone — many of these are straightforward for anyone with access to your site's backend. But they can't be resolved through Site Audit alone.
Monitor Issues — issues that don't require action right now but are worth keeping an eye on. These might be normal for your type of site, or they may only become a problem if they worsen.
Start with Auto-Fixable and high-severity Errors. Those give you the fastest improvement for the least effort.
Your Site Health Score
When Site Audit finishes crawling, you'll see an overall Site Health Score at the top of your results. Think of it as a quick read on where things stand.
Issues are broken into three tiers:
Errors — the highest-priority problems that need to be addressed first
Warnings — issues that matter but aren't as urgent
Notices — things worth knowing about, even if they don't require immediate action
What moves the score? The health score is weighted toward the issues that matter most for search performance. Resolving Errors has the biggest impact; fixing Warnings moves it meaningfully; clearing Notices has a smaller effect. A low score on a first crawl is common — it usually reflects a fresh look at issues that have accumulated over time, not a site that's suddenly broken. As you work through fixes, the score will climb. Re-crawl your site after making changes to see your progress reflected in the score.
What's a good score? That depends on your site. A score in the 70s or 80s generally indicates solid technical health. Scores below 50 usually mean there are a handful of high-priority errors worth addressing before anything else.
Errors and Warnings Over Time
The score updates with each crawl, so you can track your progress as you work through fixes. The first run will have a placeholder until more results add up. That ongoing historical monitoring shows whether things are improving — or if a new issue has crept in.
Indexable vs. Non-indexable pages
On the Pages view, you'll see tabs for Indexable and Non-indexable pages. An indexable page is one that search engines are allowed to find and include in search results. A non-indexable page has been blocked from indexing — either intentionally (login pages, internal tools) or accidentally (a misconfigured robots.txt or noindex tag).
Non-indexable pages won't show up in Google search results, so it's worth reviewing them to make sure nothing important was blocked by mistake.
Auto Fix
Auto Fix is one of the most powerful features in Site Audit. It lets you resolve certain SEO issues directly through SpyFu — without touching your site's code or waiting on a developer.
You will probably see this first on your dashboard in the summary of Fixes Ready to Publish, but Auto Fix opportunities are flagged across the audit.
How does autofix work? Auto Fix applies changes through a small JavaScript snippet that you install on your site (a one-time, two-minute setup). Once the snippet is in place, any fix you apply through Site Audit is delivered to your site automatically via that snippet.
Does it change my live website? Yes. Auto Fix changes affect what visitors and search engines see on your pages. You review suggested fixes before anything goes live, so nothing is published without your approval, and you can roll it back if needed.
What does "Published" mean? Published means the fix is live — it's being applied to your site through the JS snippet. Unpublished fixes have been generated but not yet applied.
Can I undo a fix? Yes. If you apply a fix and it doesn't work as expected, you can revert it from Site Audit.
AI-Powered Recommendations
Finding issues is only half the job. Site Audit goes further by generating specific recommendations that help you act on what you've found — without having to figure out every fix from scratch.
AI-powered recommendations cover:
Title tag improvements — suggestions for titles that are better aligned with the page's content and search intent
Meta description recommendations — rewrites that are more compelling and within proper length guidelines
Heading structure — guidance on improving H1s and subheadings for clarity and relevance
Alt text suggestions — descriptive alt text for images that are currently missing it
Content improvements — recommendations for strengthening thin or underperforming content
This is the part of the workflow that closes the gap between "we found this issue" and "here's what we did about it."
And all of those fixes align with your SEO and AI visibility goals. That's where Target Keywords influence the tone and content of the improvements we suggest.
Target Keywords
The Target Keywords tab is where you connect your pages to the search terms you want them to rank for. Think of it as setting the intention behind your SEO. That way all of our recommendations are aligned with your page-level goals.
When a page has a defined keyword target, Site Audit can give you more precise recommendations for things like internal links, meta descriptions, and titles.
For each page, Site Audit may suggest a keyword based on what the page already ranks for or what appears most relevant to the content. This is a starting point, and you can accept it, swap it for something else, or get closely related ideas.
Primary vs. Secondary keywords
The primary keyword is the main term you want the page to rank for. Secondary keywords are supporting terms — related searches that the page might also target. A strong page usually serves one clear primary keyword and a handful of related secondary ones.
Auto fixes only work if you have a target keyword in place. But if your page is missing one, we'll prompt you to add it.
Broken Link Detection
Broken links are a frustrating but common site health issue. They frustrate users, waste crawl budget, and can signal to search engines that a site isn't well-maintained.
Site Audit alerts you to:
Internal broken links — pages on your own site that link to URLs that no longer exist
External broken links — outbound links pointing to pages that have moved or disappeared
Insecure HTTP references — links that use HTTP instead of HTTPS, which can trigger browser warnings and affect user trust
A note on link types
On the Link Health tab, you'll see labels like "anchor · follow," "image · follow," and "canonical · follow." These describe how the link is structured and whether search engines should follow it. Anchor links are standard text links. Image links are images that link to another page. Canonical links tell search engines which version of a page is the "official" one. Nofollow links instruct search engines not to pass authority through them.
For most customers, the key thing to know is that "follow" links are the ones search engines act on — and broken ones are the most important to fix.
Internal Link Opportunities
Internal linking is one of the most underleveraged parts of SEO. The way pages connect to each other affects both how search engines crawl your site and how authority flows through it.
If you do any content writing, this is one of the most immediately useful features. Knowing which pages are isolated — and which ones should be linking to your newest content — smooths out a necessary but easily-skipped step when you're adding new content.
Site Audit includes:
Orphan page identification — pages that aren't linked to from anywhere else on your site (which means search engines may never find them)
Internal linking opportunities — recommendations for which pages should be connecting to each other but aren't
Orphan page counts
A high orphan page count isn't always cause for alarm. Sites that use XML sitemaps heavily — as many large or enterprise sites do — often have pages that aren't linked internally but are still discoverable by search engines through the sitemap. If you're seeing a large number here, check whether those pages are included in your sitemap before treating all of them as problems.
Sitemap Validation
A sitemap tells search engines which pages on your site exist and how to find them. If your sitemap is out of date, missing pages, or inconsistent with your actual site structure, it can slow down how quickly new content gets discovered and indexed.
Site Audit checks:
Whether your sitemap is discoverable
Whether any pages are missing from it
Whether it's consistent with what the crawler actually found on your site
This is easy to overlook, but it matters — especially for newer content that you want indexed quickly.
We'll list any findings in the Issues section.
What Is a Crawl?
When Site Audit runs a crawl, it works the same way a search engine does: it visits your website page by page, following links and reading the code behind each page to understand how your site is structured. The result is a snapshot of your site's technical health — what's working, what's broken, and what could be improved.
A few things to know about the crawl:
What does "Re-Crawl" do? A re-crawl runs the same process again from scratch, so your results reflect the current state of your site. This is useful after you've made fixes and want to see how your health score has changed. Re-crawls typically take a few minutes for smaller sites.
What is JS rendering, and why does it say "Off"? JavaScript (JS) rendering tells the crawler to execute your site's JavaScript before reading the page — similar to how a real browser loads it. When JS rendering is off, the crawler reads the underlying HTML only, which is faster and works well for most sites. If your site relies heavily on JavaScript to display content, turning JS rendering on may give you more accurate results.
You can toggle this in your Crawl Settings>Rendering. Be sure to click "save changes" at the bottom of the page.
Smart Crawl Management
By default, Site Audit crawls up to 100 pages, which is enough for a thorough audit of most small and mid-sized sites. If you're working with a larger site, you can adjust the crawl depth to go deeper.
The 100-page default is intentional. A focused crawl gives you fast, actionable results without putting unexpected load on your site's server. For larger sites, simply increase the limit in your crawl settings to match what you need. You can adjust this in settings or at the start of a new crawl.
What does the "SITEWIDE" badge mean on some issues? A SITEWIDE issue affects every page (or nearly every page) on your site — rather than being isolated to one or two URLs. This can actually be useful information: a sitewide issue often has a single root cause that, once fixed, resolves the problem everywhere at once. It's not necessarily worse than a per-page issue — it may even be faster to fix.
Common issues that look alarming but may be normal:
"Duplicate meta tags on page" affecting 90%+ of pages — This is frequently a CMS artifact, where a platform generates the same meta tag in multiple places by default. It's worth addressing, but it's extremely common and rarely as catastrophic as the number suggests.
"Low text-to-code ratio" on many pages — Modern websites built on JavaScript frameworks often have a lot of code relative to visible text. This is the norm for JS-heavy sites and doesn't necessarily signal a content problem.
If an issue's scale seems surprising, check the issue detail view for context — Site Audit often includes notes on what's typical and what needs urgent attention.
Can I schedule regular crawls? Yes, you can set up a crawl schedule in your crawl settings.
How It Fits Into Your SpyFu Workflow
Site Audit is designed to work alongside SpyFu's competitive intelligence tools. While Site Audit focuses on your own site's technical health, features like keyword research and domain analysis give you the competitive picture.
Put them together, and you can see how your site stacks up technically while also understanding what's working for competitors in your space — all from the same platform.
Top Questions
Here's a recap of the highlights about the audit and questions you might have.
How many pages does Site Audit crawl by default? The default is 100 pages. You can adjust the crawl limit in your settings if you need to cover a larger site.
What kinds of issues does Site Audit check for? It covers technical SEO, metadata, content quality, internal linking, sitemaps, crawlability, accessibility-related SEO, duplicate content, social metadata, and broken internal and external links.
What are the AI-powered recommendations? After identifying issues, Site Audit generates specific suggestions for title tags, meta descriptions, headings, alt text, and content improvements — so you know not just what's wrong, but what to do about it.
Can I track my site health over time? Yes. Site Audit includes historical monitoring so you can see how your health score changes as you make improvements.
What's the difference between errors, warnings, and notices? Errors are the most urgent issues and should be addressed first. Warnings are important but less critical. Notices are informational — worth knowing about, but not necessarily requiring immediate action.
What's the difference between Auto-Fixable, Review, Developer Fix, and Monitor issues? These four categories tell you what kind of action each issue requires. Auto-Fixable issues can be resolved with one click through Site Audit. Review issues need your judgment before a fix is applied. Developer Fix issues require changes to your site's code. Monitor issues are things to watch but don't need action right now.
What is the JS snippet and do I need it? The JavaScript snippet is a small piece of code you install on your site (takes about two minutes) that enables the Auto Fix feature. Without it, you can still see all your issues and recommendations — you just won't be able to apply Auto Fixes directly from Site Audit.
What does "indexable" mean? Indexable pages are ones search engines can find and include in search results. Non-indexable pages are blocked from being indexed — either on purpose (like a login page) or by accident. Review your non-indexable pages to make sure nothing important was accidentally excluded.
Where do I find Site Audit in SpyFu? You can use the navigation menu under Projects>Site Audit. Or, go directly to https://www.spyfu.com/siteaudit