The Technical Audit checks your key pages to see how ready they are to be read, understood, and cited by AI models. You add the pages you care about, Gumshoe runs a set of structured checks against each one, and you get a score plus specific recommendations. Rerun the audit over time, and Gumshoe tracks the trend, so you can see whether the changes you made are moving the score in the right direction.
Do I need a subscription to use Technical Audit?
Technical Audit is available on Starter, Pro, and Custom projects. It isn't available on a Free Sample or a Sales Audit project. If you're on a Free Sample and want to use Technical Audit, upgrading your project to a subscription unlocks it.
What does the Technical Audit check?
The audit looks at pages through the lens of AI readiness, not classic SEO. Each page gets an overall AI Optimization Score (AIO) plus per-category scores in these areas:
- Structured Data Assessment: whether the page uses JSON-LD structured data and which schema types are in place.
- Page Layout Structure: heading hierarchy, semantic HTML, and how clearly the page is organized.
- Schema Markup: specific schema.org types (Organization, WebPage, Product, FAQ, Article) and how completely they're populated.
- Navigation: internal linking, URL structure, breadcrumbs, canonical tags, and hreflang.
- Content Balance: text-to-code ratio and how much meaningful content exists relative to markup.
- Metadata: title tags, meta descriptions, Open Graph, Twitter Card, and canonical URLs.
For every category, the audit surfaces Highlights (what's working) and Recommendations (what to fix).
Where can I find the Technical Audit?
Open the project you want to check, then click Technical Audit in the left menu. From here, you can add pages, start audits, reanalyze, and archive.
How do I add pages to the audit?
- Open Technical Audit in the left menu.
- Click Add pages in the top right.
- Fill in any of the Key pages slots (Home page, About page, Blog/News page, FAQ/Resources page) and add additional URLs under General pages. You can paste multiple URLs at once into a General pages field, for example a column copied straight from a spreadsheet, and Gumshoe will split them into separate fields automatically.
- Click Start page audits.
Leave any field blank if it doesn't apply. Each page runs through the audit, and once finished, it appears in the Active list with its score and last run date.
Can I add pages in bulk through the API or from a sitemap?
Not yet. The API is currently read-only and can't add pages. There's also no built-in way to fetch URLs automatically from a sitemap. Pasting a list of URLs into the General pages field, as described above, is the fastest bulk-add option available today.
How do I read the score?
Scores run from 0 to 100 percent. Higher is better. Each score is paired with a rating: Poor, Fair, Good, or Very Good.
Treat scores as directional rather than precise. Some fluctuation between runs is normal, especially after smaller content changes. Focus on the trend over time and on the specific recommendations, rather than chasing a particular number.
What's on the Analysis overview page?
When you click any audited page from the Technical Audit list, you land on the Analysis overview. It shows every run for that one page on a single screen.
- Audit score trend: a line chart of how the score has changed across all runs.
- Audit history: a table with the date, score, and status of each run, plus a View results link for that run.
- Reanalyze: triggers a new run from this page.
Use the trend chart to see whether the changes you made are moving the score in the right direction. Click into any individual run for the full details.
What's on the Analysis results page?
Clicking View results on any run opens the Analysis results page. This is the per-run detail view. It shows:
- The AI Optimization Score (AIO) for the page on that run, with a short summary explaining the score.
- Per-category scores with Highlights and Recommendations for each.
- The exact date of the scan and the source URL the audit pulled from.
You can switch between past runs using the Scanned dropdown at the top right of the page.
How do I rerun or archive a page?
To rerun an audit, click Reanalyze on the Analysis overview. You can also click the three-dot menu next to the URL on the Technical Audit page and pick Reanalyze.
To archive a page, click the three-dot menu next to the URL on the Technical Audit page and pick Archive. Archived pages move to the Archived tab and can be restored later.
For more detail on rerunning audits, see the article How do I refresh my Technical Audit?
What does a Failed status mean?
A Failed status indicates that Gumshoe couldn't obtain a clean read of the page after multiple retries. Open the failed page to see the specific reason for that run. Common reasons:
- The page redirected to a different URL. If the URL you entered sends our crawler to a different address, the audit flags it as failed. The check compares the final URL to the one you entered, so even a harmless or expected redirect (for example, a regional or updated URL) can trigger a failure. If the redirect is expected, update the audited page to the final URL so future runs read the right page.
- The site blocks crawlers.
- The page requires login.
- A CDN or firewall (like Cloudflare's AI bot blocking) is rejecting the request.
- The URL is non-standard, like Google.com, which blocks crawlers by design.