Every audit I have sent that came back with a complaint failed on the same class of problem, and not one of them was the analysis. It was a URL that had changed since the crawl, or a recommendation the platform cannot implement. It was a number quoted from a report that had since been refreshed, or a claim stated with more certainty than the evidence supported.
So my last pass is not a review of the findings. It is a check on those four things.
I re-fetch every URL quoted in the document, because a crawl is a snapshot and a two week old snapshot is a liability rather than evidence. I check each recommendation against the platform in front of me rather than against general practice. I re-run the numbers instead of copying them out of the working file. And I downgrade the language on anything I have not personally verified, because a client acting on a confident wrong sentence costs more than an honest uncertain one.
On a mid sized audit that takes about an hour, and it has never once been wasted.
What is on your list that is not on mine?
Swiss Knife SEO ModeratorsModeration team