Technical SEO Audit for Export Websites: A 30-Point Checklist
Content and links decide how high a page ranks. Technical SEO decides whether it can rank at all. If Google cannot crawl a page, understands the wrong version of it, or finds it slow and broken on mobile, no amount of writing will fix the result. This checklist walks through the technical checks an export website should pass, in the order they matter.
In this article
- Crawling: can search engines reach every page?
- Indexing: is the right version of each page in the index?
- International setup: does Google know which page is for which market?
- Speed and mobile: does the page work for a buyer on a phone?
- Security and structured data
- How to prioritize what you find
- Signs you need an audit now
- The bottom line
A technical audit is not a one-time task. Websites change: new pages, new languages, new plugins, a redesign, a server move. Run this checklist when a site launches, after any major change, and at least twice a year.
You need three free tools: Google Search Console, PageSpeed Insights and a crawler such as Screaming Frog (free up to 500 URLs). For Russian-speaking markets, add Yandex Webmaster.
01Crawling: can search engines reach every page?
| # | Check | How to verify | Pass condition |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | robots.txt does not block important pages | Open /robots.txt; use Search Console's robots.txt report | No Disallow rule covers products, services, blog or language folders |
| 2 | XML sitemap exists and is submitted | Open /sitemap.xml; Search Console → Sitemaps | Status "Success"; URL count matches the pages you want indexed |
| 3 | Sitemap contains only canonical, 200-status URLs | Crawl the sitemap URLs | No redirects, 404s or noindex pages listed |
| 4 | Internal links are real <a href> links | Inspect navigation and product grids | No links that only work through JavaScript click handlers |
| 5 | No orphan pages | Compare crawl results with the sitemap | Every page is linked from at least one other page |
| 6 | Crawl depth is shallow | Crawler "crawl depth" report | Key product and service pages within three clicks of the homepage |
| 7 | No broken links | Crawler → 4xx responses | Zero internal 404s; fix or redirect |
Google's documentation on robots.txt and sitemaps explains the file formats. The most common mistake we see on export sites is a Disallow: / left over from the development stage.
02Indexing: is the right version of each page in the index?
| # | Check | How to verify | Pass condition |
|---|---|---|---|
| 8 | Indexed page count is close to the expected count | Search Console → Pages | "Indexed" roughly equals the sitemap count; investigate large gaps |
| 9 | No accidental noindex | Crawler → meta robots column | noindex only on thank-you pages, internal search, admin |
| 10 | One canonical URL per page | View source: <link rel="canonical"> | Self-referencing canonical on every indexable page |
| 11 | www / non-www and http / https resolve to one version | Type each variant in a browser | All three alternatives 301-redirect to the main version |
| 12 | Trailing-slash and uppercase variants redirect | Try /products vs /products/ | One version returns 200, the other redirects |
| 13 | URL parameters do not create duplicates | Search Console → Pages → "Duplicate" reasons | Filter and sort parameters are canonicalized or blocked |
| 14 | 404 pages return a real 404 status | Open a nonsense URL; check the status code | 404 (not 200 with a "not found" message) |
Our guide to canonical tags on multilingual websites covers the most frequent duplicate-content situation on export sites.
"Discovered – currently not indexed" in Search Console is normal for a new site and usually resolves within weeks. "Crawled – currently not indexed" on important pages is a quality signal: Google saw the page and chose not to keep it. That is a content problem, not a technical one.
03International setup: does Google know which page is for which market?
| # | Check | How to verify | Pass condition |
|---|---|---|---|
| 15 | hreflang tags on every language version | View source of each language page | Each page lists itself and every alternate, including x-default |
| 16 | hreflang links are reciprocal | Crawler hreflang report | Page A points to B and B points back to A |
| 17 | Language versions are in folders or subdomains, not parameters | URL structure | /ru/, /ms/ or ru.example.com — not ?lang=ru |
| 18 | No automatic redirect by IP | Visit from a VPN or test with a crawler | Googlebot (US-based) can reach every language version |
| 19 | Each language has its own title, description and content | Compare pages | Not the English page with a translated heading only |
The details are in our hreflang guide. Automatic redirects based on visitor location are the single most damaging mistake here, because Googlebot mostly crawls from the United States and never sees the other versions.
04Speed and mobile: does the page work for a buyer on a phone?
| # | Check | How to verify | Pass condition |
|---|---|---|---|
| 20 | Core Web Vitals pass on mobile | PageSpeed Insights; Search Console → Core Web Vitals | LCP ≤ 2.5 s, INP ≤ 200 ms, CLS ≤ 0.1 |
| 21 | Images are sized and compressed | PageSpeed "Properly size images" | No image larger than its display size × 2; WebP or AVIF format |
| 22 | No render-blocking third-party scripts | PageSpeed "Reduce unused JavaScript" | Chat widgets, analytics and tag managers load after content |
| 23 | Mobile layout has no horizontal scroll or tiny tap targets | Open on a phone; Search Console mobile report | Text readable without zooming; buttons at least 44 px |
| 24 | Server responds quickly from target markets | Test from a server in the target region | Time to first byte under 800 ms; consider a CDN if not |
We explain how to read and fix each metric in Core Web Vitals for B2B Exporter Websites. For buyers in Central Asia or Southeast Asia, server location matters: a site hosted in one region can be slow in another, and a content delivery network solves most of that.
05Security and structured data
| # | Check | How to verify | Pass condition |
|---|---|---|---|
| 25 | HTTPS everywhere, no mixed content | Browser padlock; crawler "insecure content" report | Every page and every image loads over HTTPS |
| 26 | HSTS header present | Check response headers | Strict-Transport-Security returned |
| 27 | Organization schema on the homepage | Rich Results Test | Valid Organization with name, logo, URL and contact |
| 28 | Product or service schema on key pages | Rich Results Test | Valid Product or Service markup matching visible content |
| 29 | Breadcrumb and Article schema | Rich Results Test | Valid on category pages and blog posts |
| 30 | Structured data matches what the page shows | Compare markup to visible text | No prices, ratings or claims that are not on the page |
See Structured Data for Exporter Websites for implementation examples.
06How to prioritize what you find
A full audit can produce dozens of findings. Fix them in this order:
- Anything that blocks crawling or indexing (points 1–3, 9, 18). These are the "page cannot rank at all" problems.
- Duplicate and canonical issues (10–14, 15–16). These split ranking signals between versions.
- Mobile speed (20–22). This affects rankings and, more importantly, whether buyers stay on the page.
- Everything else. Structured data, HSTS, minor broken links — worth doing, rarely urgent.
Record every finding with the URL, the problem, the fix and the date. When you re-run the audit, you can see what regressed.
07Signs you need an audit now
- Indexed pages in Search Console dropped suddenly.
- A redesign, platform change or server move happened in the last three months.
- A new language version was added.
- Pages that used to rank disappeared without a content change.
- Search Console shows errors under Pages, Core Web Vitals or HTTPS.
08The bottom line
Technical SEO does not win rankings on its own, but it removes the reasons a good page fails. Run this checklist, fix the blocking problems first, and then put your effort into content and links — the parts of SEO that actually move you up.
VALTARIQ runs technical audits as part of its SEO service and builds export websites that pass these checks from launch through website development. For a refresher on the fundamentals, read Introduction to SEO for International Trade. If you want a second pair of eyes on your site, contact us.
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