SEO Metadata Audit

SEO Metadata Audit

Perform a structured audit of a webpage's HTML metadata against the 10 most important SEO meta tags. The framework is grounded in SearchEngineJournal and Google's official documentation.

For detailed per-tag audit checklists, scoring criteria, and common mistakes, read references/tag-reference.md.

Audit Workflow

Step 1 — Collect the Data

Ask for or extract the following from the provided URL, HTML source, or page description:

• <title> tag content and character count
• <meta name="description"> content and character count
• All <h1> through <h6> tags
• Image alt attributes (sample if many)
• External link rel attributes
• <meta name="robots"> tag
• <link rel="canonical"> tag
• Any <script type="application/ld+json"> blocks
• Open Graph (og:*) meta tags
• Twitter card meta tags
• <meta name="viewport"> tag

If the user provides a URL, fetch the page to extract this data. If they provide HTML, parse it directly.

Step 2 — Score Each Tag

Read references/tag-reference.md for the full checklist per tag.

Rate each tag from 0 to its max score and calculate a total out of 46 possible points.

Step 3 — Generate the Audit Report

Use this exact structure:

# SEO Metadata Audit Report
## Page: [URL or Page Name]
## Date: [Date]

### Executive Summary
[2–3 sentence overview of key findings]

### Score: XX / 46 — Grade: [A/B/C/D/F]

### Tag-by-Tag Results

| Tag | Score | Status | Key Finding |
|---|---|---|---|
| Title | X/5 | ✅/⚠️/❌ | ... |
| Description | X/5 | ✅/⚠️/❌ | ... |
| Headings | X/5 | ✅/⚠️/❌ | ... |
| Image Alt | X/4 | ✅/⚠️/❌ | ... |
| Nofollow | X/4 | ✅/⚠️/❌ | ... |
| Robots | X/4 | ✅/⚠️/❌ | ... |
| Canonical | X/5 | ✅/⚠️/❌ | ... |
| Schema | X/5 | ✅/⚠️/❌ | ... |
| Social (OG/Twitter) | X/5 | ✅/⚠️/❌ | ... |
| Viewport | X/4 | ✅/⚠️/❌ | ... |

### Priority Fixes (Ordered by Impact)
1. [Highest impact issue]
2. [Second priority]
3. [Third priority]
...

### Detailed Findings & Recommendations
[Per tag: what was found, what should be done, example code if needed]

Step 4 — Provide Corrected Code

For any tag that fails or scores below 50% of its max, provide a corrected HTML snippet the user can copy directly into their page.

Key Principles

1. Prioritize by ranking impact — Fix <title> and canonical before social tags
2. Never keyword stuff — Natural language always wins over mechanical repetition
3. Unique per page — Title, description, canonical, and OG tags must all be page-specific
4. Test after changes — Recommend Google Search Console, Rich Results Test, and Mobile-Friendly Test for validation
5. Mobile first — If viewport is missing, flag it as high priority regardless of other scores

Quick Cheat Sheet

<!-- 1. Title -->
<title>Primary Keyword - Secondary Topic | Brand Name</title>

<!-- 2. Description -->
<meta name="description" content="1–2 natural sentences describing the page. Include keywords naturally. Under 160 characters.">

<!-- 3. Headings — in HTML body -->
<h1>Primary Keyword Topic</h1>
<h2>Subtopic One</h2>
<h3>Sub-subtopic</h3>

<!-- 4. Image Alt -->
<img src="product.jpg" alt="Descriptive alt text with keyword where natural">

<!-- 5. Nofollow Links -->
<a href="https://external.com" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Link Text</a>

<!-- 6. Robots (noindex example) -->
<meta name="robots" content="noindex, nofollow">

<!-- 7. Canonical -->
<link rel="canonical" href="https://example.com/this-page-url">

<!-- 8. Schema Markup -->
<script type="application/ld+json">
{
  "@context": "http://schema.org",
  "@type": "Article",
  "name": "Article Title",
  "description": "Article description."
}
</script>

<!-- 9. Open Graph + Twitter Cards -->
<meta property="og:title" content="Page Title"/>
<meta property="og:description" content="Page description."/>
<meta property="og:url" content="https://example.com/page"/>
<meta property="og:type" content="website"/>
<meta property="og:image" content="https://example.com/image.jpg"/>
<meta property="og:image:alt" content="Image description"/>
<meta name="twitter:card" content="summary_large_image"/>
<meta name="twitter:title" content="Page Title"/>
<meta name="twitter:description" content="Page description."/>
<meta name="twitter:image" content="https://example.com/image.jpg"/>

<!-- 10. Viewport -->
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1"/>

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