In the world of SEO, experts have long advised website owners to perform frequent site audits. These audits help identify the strengths and weaknesses of a site, so they can make positive changes and rank higher in search. However, comments by Google developer Martin Splitt have cautioned site owners against relying on site audits too much.
How SEO Audits Work
There is no single formula for a site audit, though many third-party auditors exist. Generally, it means finding pages that have issues with indexing, site architecture, or a poor backlink profile. It can also involve more keyword research to refine the content on a page.
Keywords include branded names, industry terminology, and phrases that indicate the user’s intent when searching. For many online industries, keeping pages discoverable, relevant, and high-quality is vital for good business. For example, iGaming, a core part of the digital landscape, features games and services that draw from category leaders, keeping in mind user intent to look for well-known brands and content themes. Games like Slingo bingo at Paddy’s come from the popular brand Slingo that people search for; they have further collaborated with other big names like Shark Week or Who Wants To Be A Millionaire to enhance the user experience with Slingo. To many SEO experts, online impact begins and ends with your ability to target keywords within your industry.
Online entrepreneurs can perform a site audit using Google’s Search Console. However, third-party services also offer to provide insight at varying degrees of quality. As AI has developed, automated tools have also become more popular in the field. This led a user to ask about the suggestions these services provide, during the August episode of Google SEO Office Hours. Office Hours allows users to ask experts like John Mueller and Martin Splitt questions about SEO, to get Google’s official standpoint.
Site Audits Don’t Focus on SEO
During the August edition of SEO Office Hours, a user asked if they should act on a site audit that has flagged things not stated in Google’s Search Central documents. They ask: “Does it matter for SEO?”
In response, Martin Splitt clarifies an important point – site audits don’t necessarily focus on SEO. While SEO firms have the best understanding of audits and how to act on them, and they do provide actionable information, they also provide a lot of irrelevant data. Splitt clarifies that audits “still mention outdated or downright irrelevant things, unfortunately.”
He then gets specific, saying that Google doesn’t reward or punish a site’s text-to-code ratio. Likewise, he clarifies that minifying CSS/JS files so they are smaller may help users ship less data, but there are no direct implications on SEO.
Google’s SEO guidelines and algorithms change every season, so there is a lot of conventional wisdom that isn’t as effective in today’s search. However, out of caution or because there’s no downside to having it, a lot of SEO audits will recommend tweaks that might not give a direct search boost. Google’s focus on user search intent, explained by SEO expert Neil Patel, triumphs over easily gameable metrics that a site audit points out.
Splitt isn’t against site audits, however, adding that “it is a good practice though.” An underperforming site should benefit from a site audit, as it will identify concerns that may hold you back in search and user experience. However, owners should remember that not everything it points out will be a critical SEO metric demanding correction.
