Capstone: Audit Your Own Site

This is the final project of the Rankyl course. You will audit a real site, step by step, using what every module taught you, and finish with a prioritized findings table and a one-page summary. It is the same method professionals use (see Technical SEO Audits), scaled to a site you know.

Budget about 6 to 10 hours spread over a week. Some data, like a log sample or a prompt baseline, needs a few days to collect.

Pick your site#

Best: a site you own or work on, where you can verify Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools. Fine: a friend's site or a non-profit, with the owner's permission. Fallback: a public site you do not control. You can run the outside checks (crawl politely, PageSpeed Insights, robots.txt, structured data, prompts) but not the Search Console steps, so mark those "not testable".

Create a working document with three parts you will fill as you go: a baseline (Step 1), a findings log (every step) and the deliverable (the end of this page).

How each step works#

Every step lists what to check, the tool, pass and fail criteria, and the guide that teaches it. The criteria are Rankyl's rubric for this project, based on Google's documentation where Google publishes a threshold. When a check fails, add a row to your findings log with evidence: a URL, a screenshot or a number.

Step 1: Setup and baseline#

Learn it: Your SEO Toolkit, Free SEO & Marketing Tools.

Step 2: Crawling and indexing#

Learn it: Crawling & Indexing, JavaScript SEO.

Step 3: Site architecture and duplicates#

Learn it: Site Architecture, Duplicate Content.

Step 4: Core Web Vitals and mobile#

Small sites often have no field data. Then note "insufficient data" and use lab results, clearly labelled as lab.

Learn it: Core Web Vitals, Mobile-First Indexing.

Step 5: Structured data#

Remember: Google says no special markup is needed for AI Overviews or AI Mode. Structured data earns rich results and helps understanding, nothing more.

Learn it: Structured Data, Entity SEO.

Step 6: Keywords and intent#

Learn it: Search Intent, Keyword Research Process.

Step 7: On-page and content quality#

Review your 10 most important pages.

Learn it: Titles & Meta, Content Optimization, Content Refresh & Decay, AI-Assisted Content Without Penalties, E-E-A-T.

Step 8: Internal links#

Learn it: Internal Linking.

Step 9: Off-page and brand#

Learn it: Link Building, Digital PR & Brand Signals, Local SEO.

Step 10: AI crawler access#

Learn it: AI Crawlers & Bot Access.

Step 11: AEO and GEO readiness#

Being cited is an outcome, not a pass criterion. The step passes when access is open and a baseline exists to improve against. Skip llms.txt as a Google tactic: Google says Search does not use it.

Learn it: Answer Engine Optimization, SEO for AI Mode & AI Overviews, GEO Playbook, Measuring AI Visibility.

Step 12: Measurement#

Learn it: Analytics & Forecasting, SEO Testing.

The deliverable#

Your capstone output has two parts.

1. Prioritized findings table#

Use the severity definitions from Technical SEO Audits: Critical (active harm now), High (meaningful loss), Medium (compounding hygiene), Low (polish). Rate effort as S (hours), M (days) or L (weeks or other teams). Sort by severity, then effort.

| ID  | Step | Finding                                   | Evidence                              | Severity | Effort | Fix                                      | Owner | Guide                         |
|-----|------|-------------------------------------------|---------------------------------------|----------|--------|------------------------------------------|-------|-------------------------------|
| F01 | 2    | Product template ships noindex            | 40/40 excluded by noindex (GSC)       | Critical | S      | Remove robots meta from template         | Dev   | /docs/technical/crawling-and-indexing |
| F02 | 10   | CDN blocks AI search bots                 | 0 OAI-SearchBot hits in 30 days       | High     | S      | Allow search-tier bots in CDN rules      | Ops   | /docs/technical/ai-crawlers   |
| F03 | 4    | Mobile LCP 3.4 s on article template      | CrUX p75, PSI LCP breakdown           | High     | M      | Preload hero image, cut render-blocking CSS | Dev | /docs/technical/core-web-vitals |
| F04 | 7    | 12 key pages have outdated 2024 facts     | Manual review, list attached          | Medium   | M      | Refresh content, update dates            | Content | /docs/on-page/content-refresh |
| F05 | 3    | 18 internal links to 404s                 | Crawl export                          | Medium   | S      | Update links to final URLs               | Content | /docs/technical/site-architecture |

Priority falls out of the table:

• Do now: Critical at any effort, High with S effort
• Schedule: High with M or L effort, Medium with S effort
• Batch: remaining Medium and all Low

2. One-page summary#

Write it for someone who will not read the table:

1. Where the site stands in three sentences, with the baseline numbers from Step 1.
2. The top 3 to 5 findings, each with impact in plain language ("40 product pages cannot appear in Google").
3. What you need: time, people or decisions (for example, the training-bot policy).
4. How you will measure success: which numbers you will re-check at +30 and +90 days.

SEO Strategy & Stakeholder Reporting shows how to turn this into a roadmap and a report people act on.

Self-check before you finish#

• Every step has a pass, a fail with a finding, or "not testable" with a reason.
• Every Critical and High finding has evidence and a fix specific enough to become a ticket.
• You re-scheduled a check at +30 and +90 days.

Then take the final exam. Pass it with your capstone complete and you have earned the Rankyl certificate of completion.