Honest limits

What this tool doesn't check.

No SEO audit tool measures everything. Most pretend they do. We published this list so you know exactly where to look elsewhere for the parts we don't cover.

Why we built this page

Every SEO tool we've used hides its blind spots behind marketing copy. We took the opposite approach: ship a public list of what we don't measure (and why), so you can make an informed call about whether SEOSpectator covers what you need.

If something on this list matters to you, run our audit plus the right specialized tool. The 70+ checks we do run are best-in-class for what they cover.

Backlink analysis

Real backlink data costs $5,000-50,000/month from Ahrefs / Majestic / SEMrush APIs. We're not passing that cost on. For a serious backlink audit, use Ahrefs Site Explorer (free 10 lookups/month) or Google Search Console's Links report.

Roadmap: Maybe in v2 if there's demand — and we can find a sustainable cost model.

Historical ranking trends

We don't track where your site ranked yesterday vs today. Rank tracking is a separate problem — it requires running queries on Google daily, which costs SerpAPI / DataForSEO credits at $0.001-0.01 per query.

Roadmap: Roadmap: 'Connect GSC to import last 90 days of clicks + queries' is the cleaner path — uses your already-existing data instead of polling Google ourselves.

Multi-page site crawl

Today we audit a single URL. Full-site crawls (50-50,000 pages) require crawler infrastructure, cost analysis, and serious anti-detection work. Sites that disable crawlers actively break the experience.

Roadmap: Planned for Pro tier (when paid plans launch). Free tier will likely stay at single-URL audits.

Competitor comparison

We don't pull your competitors' audit data side-by-side. This is straightforward to build but adds complexity to the report and slows down the audit (2-3x more PSI calls).

Roadmap: Pro feature. The interesting version isn't just 'their score vs yours' — it's 'which specific checks they pass that you fail'. That's the design problem.

Continuous monitoring

We run an audit when you ask. We don't re-audit your site daily / weekly. That requires cron jobs per user, email digests, change-detection, alert channels — a different shape of product.

Roadmap: Pro feature. Until then, bookmark your audit URL — it stays accessible and you can re-run anytime.

Internal link graph analysis

We see internal links on the audited page. We don't crawl the whole site to map the link graph (which pages link to which, which are orphaned, which are hub pages). That's the multi-page crawl problem with extra steps.

Roadmap: Pro tier when full-site crawl ships.

Google manual actions / penalties

Only Google knows if your site has a manual penalty. We can't see this. It's reported in Google Search Console under Security & Manual Actions — connect GSC to see it surfaced in your audit context.

Roadmap: We'll surface GSC manual-action status in the audit footer when GSC is connected. Today: connect GSC manually via the dashboard.

Local SEO / Google Business Profile audit

Local SEO has its own ranking factors (citations, NAP consistency, reviews, GBP optimization) that don't show up in HTML. We'd need to integrate with the Google Maps Platform API and a citations database (Moz Local, Yext).

Roadmap: Not on the roadmap. If you're a local business, use a dedicated tool — BrightLocal or Whitespark are best-in-class.

What we DO cover, comprehensively

70+ checks across technical, on-page, schema, mobile, AEO (AI search), and real Core Web Vitals from Google PSI + CrUX. Every check explains what it measured, why it matters, and how to fix it.

Read the full methodology

See what we DO check

70+ checks on any URL in about 8 seconds. PSI Core Web Vitals follow shortly after.

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