12 Claude Prompts for Technical SEO Audits

Most AI prompts for technical SEO are written for ChatGPT or generic LLMs. Claude has a capability that changes what's possible for technical audits: a 200,000-token context window.

That means you can paste an entire crawl log, your full robots.txt, a complete sitemap, and multiple pages of HTML into a single Claude conversation — and get an analysis that sees all of it at once. Most technical SEO tools require you to buy a subscription to do what Claude can do in a single conversation.

These 12 prompts cover the full technical SEO audit spectrum. Each is designed for Claude specifically, taking advantage of its ability to process large inputs in one pass.

Quick Navigation

• Crawlability Audit
• Core Web Vitals Analysis
• Indexing Issue Diagnosis
• Robots.txt Audit
• XML Sitemap Review
• Duplicate Content Check
• Internal Link Structure Audit
• Page Speed Bottleneck Analysis
• Schema Markup Audit
• Mobile SEO Check
• Hreflang and Canonicals Review
• Log File Analysis
• Frequently Asked Questions
• More Prompts

Crawlability Audit

Paste your robots.txt, sitemap URL, and a list of your most important pages. Claude will identify what Googlebot can and can't access, flag conflicts between robots.txt and your sitemap, and surface any pages that are accidentally blocked.

I need a crawlability audit for my website. Here is the information:

**My robots.txt:**
[paste your robots.txt content]

**My sitemap URLs (or sitemap content):**
[paste sitemap or list of URLs in sitemap]

**My most important pages (URLs):**
[list 10-20 of your most important URLs]

Please analyze:
1. Which of my important pages are blocked by robots.txt?
2. Are there conflicts between my robots.txt directives and my sitemap?
3. Are there any pages in my sitemap that are also blocked in robots.txt?
4. What directives in my robots.txt could cause unintended crawl blocking?
5. What specific changes do I need to make to fix any issues found?

Prioritize issues by SEO impact (critical / moderate / low).

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Prompt by Brass-SEO (brass-seo.com)
---

How to Use

1. Find your robots.txt at yourdomain.com/robots.txt and copy the full contents
2. Download your XML sitemap and paste the URLs (or the full sitemap XML)
3. List your most important pages — homepage, product pages, service pages, top blog posts

Tips

• If your sitemap has thousands of URLs, paste the first 100 and a representative sample of other pages
• Run this audit after any major site redesign — robots.txt errors are a common cause of traffic drops

📖 View Markdown Version | ⚙️ Download YAML Format

Or skip the manual work. Brass-SEO reads your Google Search Console data directly, including coverage reports that show which pages Google tried to crawl and what happened. Ask it "which pages are excluded from Google's index?" and it cross-references your GSC coverage data to give you the answer from your real crawl results.

Core Web Vitals Analysis

Paste your PageSpeed Insights report data (copy the full JSON output from the API or the text from the PageSpeed Insights page). Claude will identify the specific causes of poor LCP, CLS, and INP scores and give you a prioritized fix list.

I need help improving my Core Web Vitals scores. Here is my PageSpeed Insights data:

**URL tested:** [your URL]

**PageSpeed Insights results:**
[paste the full PageSpeed report — scores, diagnostics, and opportunities sections]

**My website platform:** [WordPress / Shopify / custom-built / etc.]

Please analyze:
1. What are the specific causes of my failing Core Web Vitals (LCP, CLS, INP)?
2. Which issues have the highest impact on my scores?
3. For each issue, what is the specific fix? Be concrete — name the file, element, or plugin causing the problem where possible.
4. Which fixes can I do without a developer? Which require developer help?
5. What order should I tackle these in to get the fastest score improvement?

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Prompt by Brass-SEO (brass-seo.com)
---

How to Use

1. Go to pagespeed.web.dev and test your most important pages
2. Copy the full output including the "Opportunities," "Diagnostics," and "Passed audits" sections
3. Specify your platform — the fixes are different for WordPress vs Shopify vs custom sites

Tips

• Test your homepage AND your highest-traffic content pages separately — Core Web Vitals scores vary per page
• Mobile scores are weighted more heavily than desktop for Google's ranking signals

📖 View Markdown Version | ⚙️ Download YAML Format

Indexing Issue Diagnosis

Paste the URL inspection data from Google Search Console (or copy the text from the URL Inspection tool result). Claude will explain exactly what the status means and what to do next.

I have a page that isn't indexed by Google and I need to diagnose why.

**Page URL:** [your URL]

**Google Search Console URL Inspection result:**
[paste the full URL inspection output — coverage status, crawl details, indexing status, enhancements]

**What this page is about:** [brief description]

**When this page was published:** [date]

**Has this page ever been indexed?** [yes / no / unsure]

Please analyze:
1. What does the current indexing status mean in plain English?
2. What is the most likely cause of this indexing issue?
3. What are all the possible causes, from most to least likely?
4. What specific steps should I take to fix this, in order?
5. How long after I fix the issue should I expect Google to index the page?

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Prompt by Brass-SEO (brass-seo.com)
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How to Use

1. Open Google Search Console and go to URL Inspection
2. Paste your page's URL and run the inspection
3. Copy the full results including all sections (coverage, crawl, indexing)

Tips

• "Crawled — currently not indexed" and "Discovered — currently not indexed" have different root causes; always include the exact status text
• Use this prompt for one URL at a time for the most specific diagnosis

📖 View Markdown Version | ⚙️ Download YAML Format

Or skip the manual work. Brass-SEO has a built-in indexing check tool. Ask it "is [your URL] indexed?" and it queries the Google URL Inspection API directly to get the current status and explain what it means.

Robots.txt Audit

Paste your robots.txt in full. Claude will audit every directive, flag anything that could accidentally block important content, and suggest a cleaned-up version.

Please audit my robots.txt file for SEO issues.

**My robots.txt:**
[paste your complete robots.txt]

**My website type:** [e-commerce / blog / SaaS / local business / other]

**Pages I definitely want Google to crawl:**
[list any important pages or directories]

**Pages I definitely don't want Google to crawl:**
[list any admin pages, checkout pages, login pages, etc.]

Please analyze:
1. Are there any directives that could accidentally block important pages?
2. Are there directives that are overly broad or ambiguous?
3. Is my Disallow syntax correct? Any typos or formatting errors?
4. Should I add any directives to protect pages I haven't listed?
5. Provide a corrected robots.txt with comments explaining each directive.

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Prompt by Brass-SEO (brass-seo.com)
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How to Use

1. Navigate to yourdomain.com/robots.txt in your browser
2. Copy the entire contents (Ctrl+A, Ctrl+C)
3. Tell Claude your site type so it can flag category-specific risks

Tips

• A single misplaced Disallow: / can block your entire site from Google — this audit is worth running annually
• Paste the list of your most important pages so Claude can check each one against your directives

📖 View Markdown Version | ⚙️ Download YAML Format

XML Sitemap Review

Paste your XML sitemap (or a representative sample). Claude will check for common errors, missing pages, and structural issues that could slow down Google's discovery of your content.

Please review my XML sitemap for SEO issues.

**My XML sitemap:**
[paste your sitemap XML — if very large, paste the first 100 URLs and a random sample of others]

**Total number of pages on my site (approximate):** [number]

**My most important pages (URLs):**
[list 10-15 of your most important pages]

Please analyze:
1. Are any of my important pages missing from the sitemap?
2. Are there pages in the sitemap that shouldn't be there (thin content, paginated pages, search results, etc.)?
3. Is the XML formatting valid? Any structural errors?
4. Are `lastmod` dates present and do they look reasonable?
5. Should I use a sitemap index file? Do I appear to need multiple sitemaps?
6. What changes would most improve how quickly Google discovers and indexes my new content?

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Prompt by Brass-SEO (brass-seo.com)
---

How to Use

1. Find your sitemap at yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml or yourdomain.com/sitemap_index.xml
2. If it's large, paste the sitemap index file first, then paste one of the individual sitemaps
3. List your most important pages so Claude can cross-check for omissions

Tips

• Sitemaps over 50,000 URLs or 50MB need to be split into multiple sitemap files
• Don't include paginated pages, search results, or filtered URLs in your sitemap

📖 View Markdown Version | ⚙️ Download YAML Format

Duplicate Content Check

Paste the HTML source of two or more pages you suspect are competing with each other. Claude will assess whether they're duplicates, near-duplicates, or genuinely differentiated — and recommend a fix.

I'm concerned about duplicate content issues between pages on my site.

**Page 1 URL:** [URL]
**Page 1 HTML or content:**
[paste the full page HTML source, or at minimum the title, meta description, H1, and first 500 words of body content]

**Page 2 URL:** [URL]
**Page 2 HTML or content:**
[paste the same for page 2]

[Add more pages if needed]

Please analyze:
1. Are these pages duplicates, near-duplicates, or genuinely different?
2. If they're duplicates or near-duplicates: which page should be the canonical, and why?
3. What is the correct fix — canonical tag, redirect, content rewrite, or consolidation?
4. Is there a risk that Google is splitting ranking signals between these pages?
5. How do I implement the recommended fix?

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Prompt by Brass-SEO (brass-seo.com)
---

How to Use

1. Right-click any page → View Page Source → copy all
2. Paste at least the title tag, meta description, H1, and first section of body content for each page
3. Include pages you suspect compete with each other in GSC — look for similar queries ranking multiple URLs

Tips

• Common duplicate content patterns: www vs non-www, HTTP vs HTTPS, trailing slash vs no slash, URL parameters
• Check GSC for your target keywords — if two URLs rank for the same query, you likely have a canonicalization issue

📖 View Markdown Version | ⚙️ Download YAML Format

Internal Link Structure Audit

Paste a list of your pages with their current internal link counts (from a crawl tool or manual check). Claude will identify orphan pages, over-linked pages, and gaps in your link architecture.

I need an internal link structure audit for my website.

**My site's main navigation links to:** [list the pages in your main nav]

**Page inventory with internal link counts:**
[paste a list in this format:
URL | Inbound internal links | Outbound internal links | Page importance (high/medium/low)

Example:
/services/ | 8 | 12 | high
/blog/post-1/ | 0 | 3 | medium
/about/ | 5 | 2 | low
]

**My highest-priority pages (that should rank in Google):**
[list 5-10 URLs]

Please analyze:
1. Which important pages have few or no internal links pointing to them (orphan or under-linked pages)?
2. Are there pages receiving many links that aren't priorities?
3. What internal linking changes would most improve how Google understands my site structure?
4. Which specific links should I add first? Give me 5-10 concrete link additions with the source page, destination page, and suggested anchor text.

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Prompt by Brass-SEO (brass-seo.com)
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How to Use

1. Use a free tool like Screaming Frog (free up to 500 URLs) to crawl your site and export internal link data
2. Or manually count internal links to your 20-30 most important pages using GSC or a site: search
3. Mark pages as high/medium/low priority based on their business importance

Tips

• Every important page should have at least 3-5 internal links pointing to it
• Use descriptive anchor text that includes your target keywords for those pages

📖 View Markdown Version | ⚙️ Download YAML Format

Or skip the manual work. Brass-SEO can analyze your site's link structure from your GSC and crawl data. Ask it "which of my important pages have few internal links?" and it cross-references your pages against your site structure to find gaps.

Page Speed Bottleneck Analysis

Paste your full HTML source and/or your network waterfall data. Claude will identify the specific resources slowing your page load and prioritize what to fix first.

My page is loading slowly and I need to identify the bottlenecks.

**Page URL:** [URL]

**My page's HTML source:**
[paste the full <head> section and the first 100 lines of <body>]

**Network requests / waterfall data (if available):**
[paste from Chrome DevTools Network tab — list of resources, sizes, and load times]

**Current PageSpeed score:** [mobile: X, desktop: X]

**My hosting/platform:** [shared hosting / VPS / WordPress on WP Engine / Shopify / etc.]

Please analyze:
1. What are the top 3-5 bottlenecks slowing this page?
2. For each bottleneck: what is the specific resource or issue causing it?
3. What is the fix for each? Be specific — name the plugin, script, or CSS file if visible.
4. Which fixes will have the biggest impact?
5. Which can I fix myself vs which need developer help?

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Prompt by Brass-SEO (brass-seo.com)
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How to Use

1. Open Chrome DevTools (F12 or Cmd+Opt+I) → Network tab → reload the page
2. Copy the list of resources with their sizes and load times (right-click → Save all as HAR, or just copy the visible list)
3. View page source and copy the <head> section

Tips

• Large images, render-blocking JavaScript, and unminified CSS are the most common bottlenecks
• Test on mobile throttling (DevTools → Network → Fast 3G) to see what slow connection users experience

📖 View Markdown Version | ⚙️ Download YAML Format

Schema Markup Audit

Paste your page's HTML source. Claude will identify which schema types are present, validate the structure, flag errors, and recommend additional schema types that would benefit your content.

Please audit the schema markup on my page.

**Page URL:** [URL]
**Page type:** [homepage / blog post / product page / service page / local business page / other]

**Page HTML source:**
[paste the full HTML — Claude's context window can handle even large pages]

Please analyze:
1. What schema markup is currently present on this page?
2. Is the existing schema correctly structured? Any errors or missing required fields?
3. What additional schema types would benefit this page type?
4. For each recommended schema addition: provide the complete JSON-LD code I can add to this page.
5. Which schema types are most likely to generate rich results in Google Search for this content?

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Prompt by Brass-SEO (brass-seo.com)
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How to Use

1. Right-click the page → View Page Source → copy all (Ctrl+A, Ctrl+C)
2. Paste the complete HTML — Claude's 200k context window handles full pages without truncation
3. Specify the page type so Claude can recommend the most relevant schema types

Tips

• Use Google's Rich Results Test (search.google.com/test/rich-results) to validate any schema before deploying
• For local businesses: LocalBusiness schema with address, phone, and hours is a high-priority addition

📖 View Markdown Version | ⚙️ Download YAML Format

Mobile SEO Check

Paste your page's HTML source and describe what you see on mobile. Claude will audit mobile-specific SEO issues including viewport configuration, tap targets, font sizes, and mobile-first indexing readiness.

I need a mobile SEO audit for my page.

**Page URL:** [URL]

**Page HTML source (especially the <head> section):**
[paste your full HTML or at minimum the complete <head> section]

**What I observe on mobile (if you can check):**
[describe what you see — e.g., "text is very small," "buttons are close together," "have to scroll horizontally," or "looks fine to me"]

**My website platform:** [WordPress / Shopify / custom / other]

**Mobile-friendliness test result (if you've run it):**
[paste from Google's Mobile-Friendly Test at search.google.com/test/mobile-friendly]

Please analyze:
1. Is the viewport meta tag correctly configured?
2. Are there any obvious mobile usability issues visible in the HTML?
3. Does this page meet Google's mobile-first indexing requirements?
4. What are the most impactful mobile SEO fixes for this page?
5. Are there any resources (CSS, scripts) that could be blocking mobile rendering?

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Prompt by Brass-SEO (brass-seo.com)
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How to Use

1. Copy your page's HTML source (View Page Source)
2. Check Google's Mobile-Friendly Test and paste the results
3. If possible, view your page on a real mobile device and note what looks wrong

Tips

• Mobile-first indexing means Google primarily uses your mobile version to rank your page — mobile SEO issues directly affect rankings
• Common issues: missing viewport tag, tap targets under 48px, text under 16px font size

📖 View Markdown Version | ⚙️ Download YAML Format

Hreflang and Canonicals Review

Paste the HTML headers or source for pages that use hreflang (international targeting) or canonical tags. Claude will validate the implementation and flag common errors that cause ranking issues.

I need a review of my hreflang and/or canonical tag implementation.

**Type of issue:** [hreflang / canonical tags / both]

**Pages to review (paste HTML <head> sections for each):**

Page 1 URL: [URL]
Page 1 <head>:
[paste]

Page 2 URL: [URL]
Page 2 <head>:
[paste]

[add more pages as needed]

**My site's language/region targeting:** [e.g., English US, English UK, French France]

Please analyze:
1. Is the hreflang implementation correctly formatted? (language codes, region codes, x-default)
2. Do pages correctly cross-reference each other? (each language variant must list all other variants)
3. Are canonical tags pointing to the correct URLs?
4. Are there any canonical/hreflang conflicts — pages with canonicals pointing away from the hreflang target?
5. What specific fixes are needed?

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Prompt by Brass-SEO (brass-seo.com)
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How to Use

1. Right-click each page → View Page Source → copy just the <head> section
2. Paste the head section for each language or regional variant of the page
3. Include all related variants (e.g., if you have English US, English UK, and French, paste all three)

Tips

• Hreflang errors are silent — they don't cause errors in Search Console, they just cause ranking issues
• Every page in a hreflang group must reference every other page in the group, including itself

📖 View Markdown Version | ⚙️ Download YAML Format

Log File Analysis

This is where Claude's 200k context window makes a real difference. Paste your server access logs directly — Googlebot crawl patterns, crawl frequency, and crawl errors become visible in ways that most tools can't show you without a paid subscription.

I need an analysis of my server access logs to understand how Googlebot is crawling my site.

**My server access logs (Googlebot entries only, or full logs):**
[paste your log data — Claude can process thousands of lines at once]

**My site's most important URLs:**
[list 10-20 of your most important pages]

**Time period these logs cover:** [e.g., "last 7 days," "March 2026"]

Please analyze:
1. How frequently is Googlebot crawling my site? Is this normal?
2. Which pages is Googlebot crawling most and least often?
3. Are my most important pages being crawled frequently?
4. Are there any pages getting crawled that shouldn't be (admin pages, search results, etc.)?
5. Are there any 404 errors, 301 redirects, or 500 errors in Googlebot's requests?
6. What patterns suggest crawl budget is being wasted on low-value pages?
7. What specific changes would improve how Googlebot allocates crawl budget on my site?

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Prompt by Brass-SEO (brass-seo.com)
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How to Use

1. Access your server logs through your hosting control panel (cPanel → Logs → Access Log, or ask your host)
2. Filter for Googlebot entries: grep "Googlebot" access.log > googlebot.log
3. Paste the filtered log file — Claude handles large inputs without truncation

Tips

• Filter logs to the last 7-30 days for a representative picture of crawl patterns
• If your logs are very large, filter to Googlebot entries only: lines containing "Googlebot" or "Googlebot-Mobile"
• Compare crawl frequency to your publishing frequency — if you publish daily but Googlebot visits weekly, your crawl budget may be allocated elsewhere

📖 View Markdown Version | ⚙️ Download YAML Format

Or skip the manual work. Brass-SEO reads your Google Search Console data, which includes Google's own crawl statistics. Ask it "how often is Google crawling my site?" or "which pages have crawl issues?" and it pulls the answer directly from your GSC coverage and crawl stats data.

For the Claude Code workflow that automates these audits end-to-end without copy-pasting prompts, see Claude Code as Your SEO Engineer.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why use Claude specifically for technical SEO?

Claude's most relevant advantage for technical SEO is its context window size. At 200,000 tokens, you can paste full server logs, complete HTML source files, entire sitemaps, and multiple pages of data into a single conversation. Most other LLMs truncate inputs at a fraction of that size, forcing you to analyze data in pieces. Technical SEO often requires seeing the full picture — a partial crawl log or truncated HTML source misses the patterns that matter.

Can these prompts replace a technical SEO audit tool?

Not entirely. Dedicated tools like Screaming Frog or Google Search Console have features Claude doesn't — they can crawl your site automatically, track data over time, and run bulk checks. These prompts work best as a complement: you pull data from tools or your server, then use Claude to interpret and diagnose it. The combination gives you professional-grade analysis without professional-grade tool subscriptions.

How do I get my crawl data to paste into Claude?

For server logs: access them through your hosting control panel (cPanel, Plesk, or ask your host). For crawl data: Screaming Frog's free version crawls up to 500 URLs and exports to CSV — paste the relevant columns. For GSC data: export any report to CSV via Google Search Console's download button. For HTML source: right-click any page in Chrome → View Page Source → select all, copy.

Do I need a paid Claude plan to use these prompts?

Claude.ai's free tier has limits on context window size and message frequency. For log file analysis and full HTML pastes (prompts 1, 7, 9, 12), the 200k context window is the key advantage — this requires Claude's paid plans or the API. For shorter inputs like robots.txt audits or PageSpeed data (prompts 4, 2), the free tier works fine.

More Prompts

These prompts complement the broader technical SEO toolkit. For more prompts across SEO, content optimization, and analysis workflows, see the Brass-SEO AI Prompts Guide.

For more technical SEO prompts including a comprehensive site audit and Core Web Vitals analysis, see Technical SEO AI Prompts.