Is the Local SEO Audit really free?+
Yes. There is no account, no card and no limit on the number of results we show. To stop abuse, one connection can run four audits an hour, and the “I’m human” check runs before each one.
What does the check look at?+
Sixteen checks in six areas, plus a crawl of up to 25 pages: whether the homepage loads, the server response time, the SSL certificate, the domain renewal date, whether Google may index the homepage, one website address, the XML sitemap, broken, blocked or thin pages across the site, LocalBusiness schema, the phone number, the address, the page title, the meta description, the main heading, the viewport tag for phones and the email records (MX, SPF and DMARC).
Does it check my Google Business Profile?+
No. It checks the website the profile links to. Your profile’s categories, reviews and rankings are in Google. If you enter the phone number and postal code from the profile, we check that the website shows the same details — that is where most mismatches start.
Why are the phone number and postal code optional?+
Without them we can still find a phone number and schema on the website, but we can’t tell whether they are the right ones. With them, we check the exact number and code. Service-area businesses that hide their address should leave the postal code empty.
Why does a check say “Couldn’t check”?+
The website or its DNS didn’t answer in time, a firewall blocked our request, or the domain’s registry doesn’t publish renewal dates. Those checks are left out of the score instead of counting against the site. Running the check again a few minutes later often helps.
Can I check a client’s or a competitor’s website?+
Yes. Everything we read is public: the pages anyone can open, DNS records and the certificate. Agencies often send the report link to a prospect as a starting point for a conversation.
How often should I run it?+
After any website change — a redesign, a new theme or plugin, a host or domain move — and once a month otherwise. Certificates and domains can expire between checks, which is why agencies use monitoring that checks every few hours.
What happens to the details I enter?+
We keep the website, the optional phone and postal code, the results and a one-way hash of your IP address for 30 days, then delete them. If you ask for the report by email, we send it once and keep the address with the report for those 30 days. We don’t add it to a mailing list.