SEO Audit

/digital-marketing-pro:seo-audit

Script location. If your host does not set ${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}, the scripts are in this plugin's scripts/ folder, next to skills/.

Purpose

Perform a comprehensive SEO audit that evaluates a website across all major ranking dimensions. Produces a prioritized action plan with estimated impact and effort for each recommendation.

Algorithm-update context (read before triaging volatility)

Status as of 2026-10-04 (time-boxed — re-check after ~2026-12): per the Google Search Status Dashboard, the most recent core update began 21 May 2026 (completed after ~12 days). Since then Google has run only spam updates: the August 2026 spam update (18–21 Aug) and the September 2026 spam update (started 24 Sep; not yet marked complete on 2026-10-04). There was no September 2026 core update — several SEO blogs reported one; the dashboard lists none. Attribute only to updates the dashboard lists. Separately, Google's site reputation abuse policy has split at the EEA border since 30 Aug 2026: outside the EEA a manual action demotes the affected section; inside the EEA the section is separated and ranks on its own instead (Search Central) — word audit findings on third-party/"parasite" sections per region.

When an audit runs inside a listed update's rollout window (or the 4 weeks after) and the brand shows ranking volatility:

• Do not make reactive changes during a rollout. Wait for the dashboard to mark the update complete, plus 7–14 days of settling, before drawing conclusions.
• Diagnose direction before scope. A site-wide drop vs a single-section drop vs a single-template drop have very different root causes. Compare pre-rollout (21 days before the start date) vs in-rollout vs post-rollout impressions and clicks, segmented by page-group.
• Match the response to the update type. Core updates re-weight existing quality signals — the answer is deeper E-E-A-T, unique value, and pruning thin/duplicated/AI-spam pages, not chasing rumoured signals. Spam updates target policy violations — check the affected pages against Google's spam policies (scaled content abuse, site reputation abuse, expired-domain abuse) before touching anything else.
• Flag in the executive summary whether ranking deltas pre-date a listed update (likely site-specific issues) or coincide with one — this decides between quick wins and a multi-quarter quality program.

Input Required

The user must provide (or will be prompted for):

• Website URL: The domain or specific pages to audit
• Target keywords: Primary keywords the site should rank for (optional — can be researched)
• Competitors: 2-3 competitor URLs for benchmarking (optional)
• Audit scope: Full site or specific area (technical, content, local, links)
• Known issues: Any existing problems the user is aware of

Process

1. Load brand context: Read ~/.claude-marketing/brands/_active-brand.json for the active slug, then load ~/.claude-marketing/brands/{slug}/profile.json. Apply brand voice, compliance rules for target markets (skills/context-engine/compliance-rules.md), and industry context. Also check for guidelines at ~/.claude-marketing/brands/{slug}/guidelines/_manifest.json — if present, load restrictions and relevant category files. Check for custom templates at ~/.claude-marketing/brands/{slug}/templates/. Check for agency SOPs at ~/.claude-marketing/sops/. If no brand exists, ask: "Set up a brand first (/digital-marketing-pro:brand-setup)?" — or proceed with defaults.
2. Technical audit: Crawlability, indexation, Core Web Vitals, mobile usability, structured data, HTTPS, XML sitemap, robots.txt, canonical tags, redirect chains
3. On-page audit: Title tags, meta descriptions, heading hierarchy, keyword usage, image alt text, internal linking structure, URL structure
4. Content audit: Thin content, duplicate content, content gaps, freshness, E-E-A-T signals (author pages, citations, credentials, first-hand experience)
5. Local SEO (if applicable): Google Business Profile, NAP consistency, local schema, reviews, local link profile
6. Link profile: Domain authority, backlink quality, toxic links, anchor text distribution, link velocity, competitor link gap. Score the own-domain profile with the analyzer (feeds 05-link-profile.md):

   python "${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT}/scripts/link-profile-analyzer.py" \
       --file "${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_DATA}/{brand}/seo/seo-audit/{date}/links-export.json" \
       --brand-domain {brand-domain}

   (--file is a JSON array of link objects [{"url","anchor_text","domain","da","follow"}], or pass --links '<json>' inline; --brand-domain excludes internal links.) For competitor link-gap prospecting, hand off to /digital-marketing-pro:backlink-gap.
7. Score each dimension on a 1-10 scale
8. Prioritize findings by impact (high/medium/low) and effort (quick win/medium/major project)
9. Generate the audit report with actionable recommendations

For the per-dimension checklists (incl. keyword research), the findings and action-plan table layouts, the after-audit follow-up menu, and the parallel-dispatch rules (independent dimensions concurrently; the action plan stays sequential), read dimension-checklists.md beside this file.