New SEO Category Added to Google Chrome’s Lighthouse Extension
Google has added a new feature to its popular website auditing tool Lighthouse. The addition of an ‘SEO Audits’ category to the Chrome extension has been met with a positive response from the SEO community, though experts warn that the new feature is no replacement for a professional SEO audit.
So, what is Lighthouse and why is the addition of the SEO Audits category great news? Lighthouse is an open-source auditing tool that helps webmasters and web developers improve their sites by running audits that look at site performance, compatibility with web apps, accessibility and more. With a dedicated SEO Audit category, you can now run a basic SEO health-check on all pages of your site with the aim of looking for areas in need of improvement. When you conduct an audit, you can check:
Metadata (Meta titles, meta description, H1 tags, etc.)
HTTP and HTTPS status code
Robot accessibility (Whether your site can be indexed by Googlebot)
hreflang and rel=canonical tag validity
Descriptive anchor text
In addition to this, the new feature will also make recommendations for additional reports that you may find useful. Google has made it clear that no SEO guarantees (for Google Search or any other search engines, such as Bing or Yahoo!) are being made by conducting an audit with Lighthouse, as the idea behind the audit is to reflect the SEO basics that webmasters and web developers should be getting right. If you require a professional SEO audit that provides a comprehensive understanding of your site’s SEO readiness, get in touch with us here.
About the author
Michael Holder
A specialist in Google Ads, and with a wide range of SEO skills and experience, Michael has a particular interest in Local SEO strategies for small to medium sized businesses. When Michael is not working hard increasing conversions for clients Paid Advertising campaigns he enjoys traveling, dining out and watching Formula 1 and football.
