> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://help.get-ryze.ai/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Technical audit

> What a technical SEO audit covers on an ecommerce site, how findings are prioritised, and which issues actually matter versus which are noise.

A technical audit checks that your site can be crawled, indexed, rendered, and understood. It is the foundation: content and links cannot compensate for a page that cannot be reached.

## What is checked

**Crawling** — `robots.txt` rules, redirect chains, server response codes, orphan pages, crawl traps from [faceted navigation](/shopify/faceted-navigation).

**Indexation** — `noindex` directives, canonical correctness and conflicts, duplicate content, thin pages, soft 404s, parameter handling.

**Rendering** — whether body content, prices, and specifications are present in served HTML rather than requiring JavaScript.

**Structure** — hierarchy depth, internal link distribution, breadcrumbs, pagination, sitemap accuracy.

**Structured data** — presence, completeness, validity, and agreement with the visible page.

**Performance** — [Core Web Vitals](/concepts/core-web-vitals) against field data.

**International** — `hreflang` reciprocity and correctness, where applicable.

## Prioritisation: what actually matters

Audit tools produce hundreds of findings. Most do not matter. Ranked by real impact:

**Fix first — these block everything**

* Pages that should be indexed but carry `noindex` or are blocked
* Body content not rendered in HTML
* Broken canonical logic causing wrong pages to be indexed
* Redirect chains and loops on high-value URLs
* Products unreachable by any crawl path

**Fix next — these cost real traffic**

* Duplicate and thin content at scale
* Crawl traps consuming budget on large catalogues
* Missing or invalid `Product` markup
* Soft 404s across removed products
* Core Web Vitals failures on key templates

**Fix when convenient**

* Missing alt text
* Heading level inconsistencies
* Meta description length
* Minor structured data recommendations

**Usually ignore**

* Tool-generated warnings with no defined impact
* "SEO scores" out of 100

A store obsessing over alt text while half its catalogue is unindexable is optimising the wrong end.

## Read the data, not just the crawl

The most useful audit inputs are not from a crawler:

* **Search Console → Pages** shows what Google actually did with each URL — the ground truth on indexation
* **Search Console → Core Web Vitals** gives field data, not lab simulation
* **Crawl stats** show where budget is actually spent

A crawler tells you what could happen. Search Console tells you what did.

## What Ryze does

Ryze runs this audit against your connected store and Search Console data, prioritises by expected impact rather than by count, and ships fixes with approval — within hours of sign-off. See [what Ryze checks](/shopify/audit).

## Cadence

Full audit at onboarding, then continuous monitoring rather than periodic re-audits. Issues appear when themes change, apps are installed, and products are removed — a quarterly audit misses weeks of damage.

## Related

* [Technical SEO](/concepts/technical-seo)
* [Shopify SEO audit](/shopify/audit)