Starting Your First Audit

Your first site audit takes a few minutes to set up and gives you a scored, prioritized snapshot of your site's technical health. You can run it from the Site Audit tab inside a project, or with no setup at all from the standalone Site Audit tool. Both routes use the same crawler, the same checks, and the same pricing.

Before You Start

For the project route you need a project (its domain pre-fills the audit). Either route needs enough credits: a full site audit is charged by the number of pages crawled, and a single page audit is charged as one page. The exact cost is shown before you start.

Running the Audit

1. Open your project and go to the Site Audit tab.
2. Check the URL field - it should point at the site you want crawled.
3. Choose Full Site Audit (crawl the whole site) or Single Page Audit (one URL).
4. For a full audit, set Pages to Scan (1-500, default 50) and Crawl Depth (1-10, default 3). Defaults are right for a first run on most sites.
5. Click start and let the crawl run - progress displays while pages are fetched and checked. Larger crawls take longer; you can leave the page and come back, since the finished audit lands in the audit list either way.

No Project Yet? Use the Standalone Tool

The standalone Site Audit tool is the fastest route for a first look at any domain: yours, a client's, or a prospect's.

1. Open the Site Audit tool and enter the URL to audit.
2. Pick Full Site Audit or Single Page Audit, with the same Pages to Scan and Crawl Depth settings as above.
3. Start the audit. If you aren't signed in, you'll be asked to sign in or create an account at this point.

Standalone results are saved to your account, so you can reopen or export them later. What you give up is the project context: project audits line up in the project's audit list for progress tracking, can run on a schedule with emailed reports, and sit next to your rank tracking and competitor data. For a one-off check or a site you don't manage yet, standalone is enough. For a domain you'll keep working on, create a project and audit there; the history is worth it.

Reading Your First Results

Start at the top: the overall score (0-100) and the split of issues, warnings, and passed checks. Then work the grouped results in this order:

1. Errors first - missing titles or descriptions, missing H1s, 4xx/5xx responses, HTTPS problems. These are the checks weighted hardest and usually the cheapest to fix.
2. Warnings next - title and description lengths, duplicates, alt text, page speed flags. Expand each check group to see exactly which pages are affected.
3. Skim the passed checks - it tells you what's already healthy so you don't re-solve it.

If a check doesn't apply to your site, use Skip this check so future audits stay focused (restorable any time from the skipped/hidden panel).

Make It Your Baseline

This first audit is your reference point. It's stored in the audit list with its date, score, and issue count; later audits line up next to it so improvement is visible without any spreadsheet work. Two follow-ups worth doing immediately:

• Re-run a Single Page Audit (charged as one page) on a page after you fix it, to confirm the fix landed without paying for a full crawl.
• Set up Schedule Audits so the next full audit happens automatically - see Scheduling Regular Audits.

FAQ

How long does an audit take?
It depends on pages crawled and how fast your server responds - small crawls finish in minutes. The audit continues in the background if you navigate away.

Why were fewer pages audited than my limit?
The crawler found fewer pages within your crawl depth. Pages with no internal links only get included if they're in your sitemap.

Can I audit a site I don't own?
Yes. The audit only reads publicly accessible pages, the same way a search engine crawler does.

Do I pay for pages that fail to load?
Crawled pages count toward the per-page cost; 4xx/5xx responses are themselves findings the audit reports.

Related Documentation

• Site Audit Overview
• Crawl Settings & Configuration
• Scheduling Regular Audits