Step 2 of 8

Run the audit

Updated 4 min read

Short answer: open the page in Chrome, open the SEOSnip extension and go to the Issues tab. It checks the page you're looking at in a few seconds. Press the link button if you also want its links, canonical and hreflang targets checked.

Run the Issues tab

  1. Open the page in Chrome, signed in or not, the way a visitor would see it.
  2. Open the SEOSnip extension and choose Issues.
  3. Read the list. Each card is one issue, with what's wrong, the evidence, and a Ticket button.

Pages that build themselves with JavaScript after loading get a moment to finish: right after a page loads, the audit waits until it stops changing (up to four seconds). If the page reloads itself meanwhile, the extension audits the new one.

Issues with elements on the page have a Highlight on page button, which outlines each one and scrolls to it. Use it to see which image has no alt text or which link has no text. Press Esc to clear it.

What it reads

SEOSnip doesn't crawl from a server. It reads the page in your own browser, so it sees what you see, including pages behind a login. For each page it compares:

  • The rendered page: the DOM after JavaScript has run, which is what Google indexes after rendering
  • The server HTML: what the server sent before any JavaScript, which is what crawlers read first. Differences between the two get their own check; see server HTML vs rendered
  • The response headers: X-Robots-Tag, Link canonicals, security headers
  • robots.txt: whether Googlebot may crawl the page and the files it loads

The link button in the Issues toolbar fetches up to 100 of the page's targets: the canonical, hreflang alternates, then internal and external links. It reports broken links, redirects, and canonical or hreflang targets that redirect, are noindexed or don't link back. It sends a request to every target, so it takes longer than the audit; run it once per template. See how to find broken links.

When not to trust the result

An audit is only as good as the page it read. Re-run it, or pick another page, when:

  • You got a bot check or "Access denied" page instead of the real one. The audit will be about that page.
  • A cookie or newsletter popup covers the page. SEOSnip allows for the usual ones, but close it and press Re-check page if results look odd.
  • You're signed in and the page changes for members. Search engines see the signed-out version; check that one.
  • You're on a staging site. Staging is often noindexed or blocked in robots.txt on purpose, so those flags are expected there.