IGN
Our team worked on-site with IGN’s programmers to fix crawl and architecture issues in a proprietary CMS, getting thousands of unindexed pages crawled.
1,500% organic trafficUnique visitors doubled within two monthsRead the case study →
SEO Inc. / Search audits since 1997
SEO Audit & Analysis
Find out whether Google, ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity can find, trust and cite your website. Our SEO audit starts with AI search and GEO visibility, then works through technical health, content, links, local and analytics, and ends with a ranked fix list your team can act on.
Free website analysis
Request your SEO audit
Share your website, main keywords and competitors. We will start with where you stand in AI search.
29 yrsAuditing websites for search engines since 1997.
1,500%Increase in organic traffic for IGN after an audit and technical fixes.
30,000Linking sites contacted after a link audit for a national carpet cleaning franchise penalty recovery.
1,000+Non-branded keywords on page 1 or 2 for that franchise after recovery.
Step one of every audit
AI search and GEO visibility audit
Buyers now get answers from Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity before they ever click a blue link. If those systems cannot crawl your pages, understand your brand or find a quotable answer, a competitor gets the citation. We check that first.
Google AI Overviews and AI Mode presence
We test the questions your buyers ask and record whether Google’s AI Overviews (launched in the US in May 2024) and AI Mode cite your pages, a competitor’s or a directory. You see which topics you own and which you are losing.
ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity citations
We run the same prompt set across ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity and log brand mentions, cited URLs and how accurately each answer describes your products or services. Inaccurate answers usually trace back to thin or conflicting information on your own site.
AI crawler access: GPTBot, Google-Extended, PerplexityBot
We read your robots.txt, CDN and firewall rules to see which AI crawlers are allowed or blocked, including GPTBot and OAI-SearchBot (OpenAI), Google-Extended, PerplexityBot and ClaudeBot. Bot-protection settings on services like Cloudflare often block AI crawlers by default, so a site can disappear from AI answers without anyone choosing that.
Google-Extended controls whether Google can use your content for Gemini, and it does not change how Google Search or AI Overviews crawl you. We make sure your rules match what you actually want.
llms.txt and machine-readable content
We check whether you publish an llms.txt file (a plain-text guide to your key pages, proposed in September 2024) and whether your important content is present in the raw HTML rather than loaded only by JavaScript, which many AI crawlers do not render.
Schema and entity checks
We validate Organization, Service, Product, LocalBusiness, FAQPage and Article schema, then check that your brand is described the same way across your site, Google Business Profile, Wikidata, LinkedIn and major directories. Consistent entity data helps search engines and language models connect your name to the right facts.
Answer-ready content
We flag pages that bury the answer. AI systems quote short, specific passages, so we look for clear definitions, direct answers under question headings, named sources and current dates. See our AI SEO services for ongoing GEO work.
The full checklist
Everything the SEO audit covers
After AI visibility, the audit works through the five areas that still decide most organic rankings. Each finding gets a priority, an owner and an estimated effort, so nothing sits in a report unread.
Tools we use include Google Search Console, GA4, PageSpeed Insights, Screaming Frog and GTmetrix, alongside our own crawl and AI prompt testing.
Technical SEO and site health
- Crawlability, indexation, robots.txt and XML sitemaps
- Canonical tags, redirects, duplicate content and URL structure
- Core Web Vitals, including Interaction to Next Paint, which replaced First Input Delay in March 2024
- Mobile-first rendering, HTML, CSS and JavaScript issues, image weight
- HTTPS, broken links, crawl errors and server response codes
Content and keyword analysis
- Keyword mapping: which page should rank for which search, and where pages compete with each other
- Competitor content gap analysis
- On-page SEO: titles, meta descriptions, headings and internal links
- Thin, outdated or unhelpful pages, measured against Google’s helpful content guidance, which became part of the core ranking systems in March 2024
- E-E-A-T signals: authors, credentials, sources and dates
Rewrites can be handled by our SEO copywriting team.
Links, authority and toxicity
- Backlink profile, referring domains and anchor text
- Trust and citation flow compared with your top competitors
- Toxic or manipulative links that could trigger a manual action, with removal and disavow recommendations
- Internal link structure and orphaned pages
Local SEO
- Google Business Profile completeness, categories and reviews
- Name, address and phone consistency across directories
- Location pages and LocalBusiness schema for every office or service area
Multi-location brands can continue with our local SEO services.
Analytics and conversion tracking
- GA4 and Google Tag Manager setup, key events and conversion values
- Search Console property coverage and data accuracy
- Bot and spam traffic filtering, and AI referral traffic from chatgpt.com, perplexity.ai and gemini.google.com
- Site architecture, navigation and UX issues that hurt conversion rate
Questions owners ask
Why run an SEO audit now?
Hover or tap a card for the short answer.
Question
Why did my traffic drop when my rankings look fine?
AI Overviews and chat answers now satisfy many searches without a click. An audit shows which queries moved to AI answers and whether you are the source being cited.
Question
Could my own site be blocking AI search?
Yes. A single robots.txt line or a CDN bot setting can block GPTBot or PerplexityBot. We check every rule and tell you exactly what is allowed.
Question
What does a deep-dive audit score?
Keywords, competitive intelligence, site health and Core Web Vitals, link popularity, trust and citation flow, link toxicity, local, analytics and AI visibility.
Question
What if past SEO work hurt us?
A link audit finds the damage. For a national carpet cleaning franchise hit by a Google penalty, we contacted 30,000 linking sites and got the site reinstated.
Our process
How the SEO audit works
An SEO analyst runs every audit. You get findings ranked by impact, with the reasoning behind each one.
Discovery
We learn your industry, goals, primary keywords and the competitors you actually lose business to.
AI and GEO testing
Prompt testing across AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity, plus crawler access, llms.txt and schema checks.
Deep-dive audit
Technical crawl, content and keyword review, link analysis, local and analytics checks, scored by area.
Prioritized action plan
A ranked fix list with effort, owner and expected impact, walked through with you on a call.
Proposal and next steps
A detailed SEO proposal at no initial cost. Fix it in-house or have our team implement it.
Audits that led to growth
What an audit can uncover
Each of these engagements started with an audit. Follow the links for the full story.
National carpet cleaning franchise
A full link audit separated legitimate links from harmful ones, followed by documented outreach and reinstatement in Google.
2x+ trafficIn 12 months, with 1,000+ non-branded keywords on page 1 or 2Read the case study →
Entrepreneur
The baseline audit found only 5% of the site had any SEO. A three-stage plan optimized core pages, the article archive and publishing workflow. Website traffic grew from about 2 million to 7 million visits.
$2M+ per monthEstimated return in a typical monthRead the case study →
Results belong to each client’s own engagement and measurement period. See all client case studies.
An audit finding needs a reason to be a priority
Automated tools can produce a long list of warnings. The useful deliverable explains which findings affect important pages, what evidence supports them and what should happen next.
Access and measurement problems
Investigate problems such as a priority page being unavailable, accidentally excluded from indexing or missing reliable conversion measurement. Confirm the condition before recommending a fix.
Content and customer-decision gaps
Examine whether the landing page answers the intended question and provides the information a prospect needs. Separate a thin explanation from a technical issue so the right team can address it.
Lower-impact cleanup
Keep minor inconsistencies visible without letting them displace work that affects customer journeys. Estimate implementation effort and note dependencies before scheduling a large batch of changes.
Each actionable finding should identify the affected URL or template, supporting evidence, proposed owner and a way to verify the result. Severity labels alone are not an implementation plan.
SEO audit FAQ
Straight answers about what an SEO audit covers in the age of AI search.
What is included in an SEO audit?
Our SEO audit covers six areas: AI search and GEO visibility, technical SEO, content and keywords, links and authority, local SEO, and analytics and tracking. Each finding is scored and ranked in a prioritized action plan.
What is a GEO audit?
A GEO (generative engine optimization) audit measures whether AI systems such as Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity mention and cite your brand, and finds the crawler, content and schema issues that keep them from doing so.
How do you check whether ChatGPT and Perplexity cite my site?
We run a fixed set of buyer-intent prompts in ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity and record every brand mention and cited URL, then compare the results with your top competitors so you can see who AI answers recommend.
Should I block GPTBot or Google-Extended in robots.txt?
It depends on your goals. Blocking GPTBot stops OpenAI from crawling your pages, which can reduce how often ChatGPT cites them. Google-Extended only controls use of your content for Gemini and does not affect Google Search or AI Overviews.
Do I need an llms.txt file?
An llms.txt file, proposed in September 2024, is a plain-text map of your most important pages for language models. It is low effort to publish, and we check that it lists the pages you most want AI systems to read.
How long does an SEO audit take?
Timing depends on site size, and we set the timeline during discovery. Large sites take longer: for IGN, our SEO team spent several days on-site learning its proprietary CMS before fixing the crawl issues.
Is the SEO audit free?
Yes. We offer a free website analysis and a detailed SEO proposal at no initial cost. You can implement the findings in-house or have SEO Inc. handle them.
Can an audit help recover from a Google penalty?
Yes. A link audit identifies the harmful links behind a manual action. For a national carpet cleaning franchise, we contacted 30,000 linking sites, the site was reinstated, and traffic more than doubled in the following 12 months.
Why choose SEO Inc. for an SEO audit?
SEO Inc. has audited websites since 1997, is a Google Partner, and built a first-in-the-nation college-credited SEO and SEM course for UC San Diego in 2010. Our audit work includes IGN and Entrepreneur.
Find out where you stand in AI search
Send us your website, keywords and competitors. We will audit AI visibility first, then technical, content, links, local and analytics, and walk you through the fixes that matter most. Prefer to talk? Call 877.736.0006.
