Home / What Steeplejack checks
Technical SEO check
The checks that decide whether search engines can find, read and trust a site: indexing rules, titles, canonicals, the sitemap, broken links and real-visitor speed.
A stray noindex left over from staging can remove a site from Google, and nobody notices until the enquiries stop. This survey is built to catch problems like that.
This is technical SEO, not keyword research. Steeplejack doesn’t track rankings, backlinks or competitors. If you need those, it sits alongside a tool like Semrush rather than replacing it.
What the free survey checks
Page title present, 30–60 characters
The title is the headline in search results and browser tabs. Missing, too short or truncated titles lose clicks.
Meta description present, 70–160 characters
Search engines often use the meta description as the snippet under the title. Without one they pick text from the page, which is rarely the best pitch.
One H1 and no skipped heading levels
One H1 and an ordered heading structure help search engines, AI tools and screen reader users understand the page.
Canonical URL present and on this site
A canonical URL tells search engines which address is the main version, so duplicates (tracking parameters, http/www variants) don't split ranking.
Page is not blocked from search indexing
A noindex instruction removes the page from search results entirely. Usually left over from a staging site.
robots.txt present and references a sitemap
robots.txt tells crawlers what they may visit and where the sitemap is. A Sitemap line helps search engines and AI crawlers find every page.
XML sitemap present, valid and listing working pages
An XML sitemap lists the pages you want found, so new and deep pages are discovered faster. Search engines trust a sitemap less when it lists broken, redirected, noindex or non-canonical URLs, and crawl budget goes on the wrong pages.
Open Graph and Twitter card tags
Open Graph and Twitter card tags control how links look when shared on social media and in messaging apps.
Page language declared
The lang attribute tells search engines and screen readers which language the page is in, so it's indexed and read aloud correctly.
HTTP and www variants redirect in one hop
Each extra redirect adds a round trip before the page starts loading and can dilute link value.
Images have alt attributes
Alt text describes images to screen reader users and search engines. Images with no alt attribute at all are announced by file name.
Lighthouse SEO score
Lighthouse's SEO audit covers the basics search engines need: crawlable links, valid status, mobile viewport, descriptive link text.
Field Core Web Vitals (CrUX)
Google ranks on what real visitors experience (Core Web Vitals from the Chrome UX Report), not on lab tests. These are the numbers for phones over the last 28 days.
Homepage links work
A broken link on the homepage is the one most visitors are likely to hit, and it stops search engines following it to the page behind it.
Missing pages return a 404
When a missing page returns 200, search engines may index the error page or treat it as a “soft 404”, and broken links and deleted pages are hard to spot in your logs.
Social share image loads at a usable size
This image is what people see when the site is shared in social posts and messaging apps. If it's broken or tiny, the link gets a blank or poor preview.
Favicon and touch icon present
The favicon appears in browser tabs, bookmarks and Google's mobile results. The touch icon is what iPhones and iPads use when someone saves the site to their home screen.
Planned for Pro and Expert
These levels aren’t available yet. See the plans.
Pro
- No broken internal links or assets, 4xx/5xx pages, or redirect problems
- No duplicate titles, meta descriptions or H1s across pages
- No near-duplicate page content
- Canonical links valid
- Hreflang valid across pages
- No internal links from HTTPS pages to HTTP pages
Expert
- No orphan pages in the sitemap
- Pages reachable within 3 clicks of the homepage
- Pages have more than one incoming internal link
- Blocked pages reviewed for accidental blocking
- No broken external links
- Internal links not marked nofollow
- Links have descriptive anchor text