Conducting Technical SEO Audits on large websites can be intimidating. Most large websites will have thousands of pages critical to analysis, complicated architecture, a mismatched bag of legacy systems, and so on. All of these factors further contribute to the complicated task of keeping a website SEO friendly.

Regardless, if you want to progress, it's critical that you learn and implement advanced Technical SEO Audits checklists that include large websites as part of your process.

This guide will provide you with a detailed step by step approach to perform advanced Technical SEO Audits for large-scale websites.

Crawl the Entire Site

While this can be complicated, the first step to using a Technical SEO Audits is to crawl the entire site. Tools such as Screaming Frog, Sitebulb, or DeepCrawl have helpfully been proven to crawl large websites. As you crawl a site, you'll be able to analyze - status codes, meta tags, canonicals, redirects, and so on - data related to the technical SEO of the site. 

When crawling, ensure:

You include all subdomains if relevant.

when using a bot you are respecting robots.txt, but can still check blocked resources.

You capture JavaScript-rendered content.

This forms the foundation of your technical SEO audit checklist, enabling a deeper dive into the site’s structure.

Analyze Website Architecture

Website architecture plays a critical role in SEO for large sites. A flat architecture—where most pages are only a few clicks away from the homepage—ensures better crawlability and link equity distribution.

Check:

Internal linking structure: Is it logical and easy to follow?

Depth of important pages: Are they buried too deep?

Orphan pages: Are there pages not linked anywhere internally?

Optimizing architecture is a key focus area in Technical SEO Audits to ensure efficient indexing.

Technical SEO audit reveals critical issues for optimization

Analyze Page speed and Core web vitals

Page speed is both a ranking factor. It will be even more critical for larger sites as slow loading pages at scale, create a poor experience overall.

Use the following tools: Google Page Speed Insights and Google Lighthouse, to test:

• Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)
• First Input Delay (FID)
• Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)

Any improvements made to these should be included as part of a complete technical SEO audit checklist.

Evaluate Indexability and Crawl Budget

In large websites, inefficient use of this budget can result in important pages not being indexed.

As part of your Technical SEO Audits:

Identify and remove duplicate or thin content.

Consolidate or redirect low-value pages.

Monitoring your crawl stats in Google Search Console helps refine your technical SEO audit checklist further.

Check Mobile-Friendliness and Responsiveness

With Google implementing mobile-first indexing, you need to have that mobile version fully optimized. 

Ensure that:

• Content is readable without zooming.
• Buttons are appropriately spaced.
• Mobile responsiveness is a non-negotiable item in all Technical SEO Audits today.

Optimize URL Structure and Parameters

URL structures on large websites can become messy with dynamic parameters, filters, and sessions. 

Review and include in your technical SEO audit checklist:

• Removing unnecessary parameters.
• Canonicalizing similar URLs.
• Blocking irrelevant URLs in robots.txt.
• Maintaining a clean URL structure boosts crawl efficiency and overall site health.

Examine XML Sitemaps and Robots.txt

Large websites should maintain accurate XML sitemaps and correctly configured robots.txt files. These files tell search engines what to crawl and what to ignore.

Check:

• That XML sitemaps are updated frequently.
• That sitemap URLs return a 200 status and are indexable.
• That the robots.txt file doesn't block important resources.
• These settings are core items in every advanced Technical SEO Audit.
• Identify Duplicate Content and Canonicalization Issues

For large sites with many product pages, blog tags, or filter combinations, this is a common issue.

• Use your technical SEO audit checklist to:
• Identify duplicate pages using crawl data.
• Implement canonical tags to signal preferred versions.
• Use hreflang for international targeting.
• Solving duplication issues enhances site clarity for both users and search engines.

Monitor Structured Data and Schema Markup

Monitor Structured Data and Schema Markup

Structured data helps search engines understand your content better and can ultimately yield rich results in SERPs.

As part of Technical SEO Audits, use Google’s Rich Results Test to check your schema markup. You will likely utilize structured data for:

• Product
• Article
• Breadcrumb
• Organization

Be sure there are no errors or warnings with schema issues, especially across templates that may be used in hundreds or thousands of pages.

 Audit Security and HTTPS Implementation

Ensuring the proper implementation of HTTPS across the entire website is a must.

Your technical SEO audit checklist should include:

• Verifying that all pages redirect to HTTPS.
• Checking for mixed content warnings.
• Ensuring SSL certificates are valid and up to date.
• Security not only impacts rankings but also user trust and conversions

Review Internal and External Linking

Link equity distribution within large websites is crucial for performance. Analyze how internal links are structured and whether important pages are getting sufficient link signals.

Check:

Broken internal and outbound links.

Excessive linking to low-priority pages.

Anchor text distribution.

Effective internal linking should be part of every advanced Technical SEO Audit.

Analyze Logs for Crawl Behavior

For large sites, log file analysis can offer deep insights into how search engines interact with your pages. This allows you to see:

• Which pages are crawled most often.
• Crawl frequency trends over time.
• Missed opportunities for priority pages.

Adding log analysis to your technical SEO audit checklist turns assumptions into data-driven decisions.

Conclusion

Conducting Advanced Technical SEO Audits for large websites can be challenging. It requires advance planning, the right tool-set, and a solid technical SEO audit checklist. Each area needs to be studied—from crawlability & architecture to schema and security—to help ensure your website is safe for users and search engines at scale.

If you need assistance for your enterprise level SEO projects, speak with an experienced SEO Company in South Africa to provide the help and support you need.

GO Globe can deliver professional SEO auditing and implementation services—strategically scaling digital solutions to optimise your web presence.