Audit Standard / 2026.3

Rule explorer: Audit Standard 2026.3

Every check that defines technical readiness in MaxiMarket Audit Standard 2026.3, exactly as the audit applies it. Open a rule to see what it checks, why it matters, how to fix it, where its authority comes from and how much it counts.

Superseded. This is an earlier Audit Standard version, kept unchanged so audits saved under it keep their meaning. New audits use the current Audit Standard 2026.4.

Guides by topic: technical SEO audit rules, AI readiness, structured data and ecommerce product data.

Version: 2026.3
Status: Superseded
Published: 2026-09-30
Rules: 92
Scored: 72
Observations: 33

Authority levels

Official search-engine requirement: A search engine documents it as required for a specific outcome, such as Google eligibility.; Strongest external authority
Open standard / Schema.org: Defined by an open standard or vocabulary: HTML, WCAG, IETF RFCs, Schema.org, Sitemaps, Open Graph.
Official platform recommendation: Recommended in official platform documentation, such as Google Search Central or an AI platform.
Accepted best practice: Widely accepted practice with a cited source, but no official requirement.
MaxiMarket recommendation: MaxiMarket’s own advice. Never presented as a search engine or platform requirement.; MaxiMarket methodology

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Showing 4 rules and 0 observations.

Rules

Rules pass or fail. A failed rule becomes a finding in your report; scored rules also count toward the Technical Score.

Headings and semantic structure

SEO-HEADING-001MaxiMarket recommendation · MaxiMarket best practicePage has a top-level headingDocumentWarning when failedNot scoredTechnical SearchAI DiscoveryMachine Readability

What this checks: Whether the returned HTML contains at least one h1 element.
Why it matters: A visible top-level heading helps visitors, assistive technology and automated readers identify the page subject. This is a MaxiMarket content-structure recommendation.
How to fix: Mark up the main page heading, such as the product name, as an <h1>.

Expected: The page has an h1 element that names its main content.
Applies to: Every retrieved page. Non-scoring: a MaxiMarket recommendation.
Authority: MaxiMarket recommendation · MaxiMarket best practiceMaxiMarket recommendation. No search engine, standard or platform requires this.
Technical Score: Not scoredA MaxiMarket recommendation; Google says there is no ideal heading structure.
How MaxiMarket detects it: Reports when the returned HTML contains no h1 element. Headings created by client-side JavaScript are visible only in browser-based audits.
Sources: WCAG 2.2 Understanding SC 1.3.1 Info and Relationships — W3C, verified 2026-09-26

SEO Starter Guide — Google Search Central, verified 2026-09-26

Indexing and snippet directives

INDEX-DIRECTIVE-CONFLICT-001MaxiMarket recommendation · MaxiMarket best practiceRobots rules for the same crawler do not conflictIndexingWarning when failedNot scoredTechnical Search

What this checks: Whether robots rules addressed to the same target contradict each other.
Why it matters: Google documents that the more restrictive rule applies when robots rules conflict, so a stray restrictive declaration silently wins. Avoiding conflicts is a MaxiMarket recommendation.
How to fix: Keep one consistent set of robots rules per target across the robots meta tags and the X-Robots-Tag header.

Expected: Each target (all crawlers, or one named crawler) receives one consistent set of rules.
Applies to: Pages with robots meta or X-Robots-Tag declarations; conflicts are judged within one target (all crawlers, or one named crawler).
Authority: MaxiMarket recommendation · MaxiMarket best practiceMaxiMarket recommendation. No search engine, standard or platform requires this.
Technical Score: Not scoredA MaxiMarket recommendation: search engines resolve conflicts deterministically (most restrictive wins), so the outcome depends on intent.
How MaxiMarket detects it: Within one target (robots meta named robots plus unprefixed X-Robots-Tag directives for all crawlers, or one named crawler), reports index or all together with noindex or none, or follow or all together with nofollow or none. Combinations across different targets are not treated as conflicts.
Sources: Robots meta tag, data-nosnippet and X-Robots-Tag specifications — Google Search Central, verified 2026-09-26

International (hreflang)

INTL-HREFLANG-002MaxiMarket recommendation · MaxiMarket best practiceEach hreflang language is declared onceIndexingWarning when failedNot scoredTechnical Search

What this checks: Whether any normalized hreflang language is declared more than once on the page.
Why it matters: Declaring the same language for several URLs makes the intended alternate ambiguous. This is a MaxiMarket consistency recommendation.
How to fix: Keep one alternate link per hreflang value and remove or correct the duplicates.

Expected: Each language or language-region value maps to one alternate URL.
Applies to: Pages with at least one hreflang declaration.
Authority: MaxiMarket recommendation · MaxiMarket best practiceMaxiMarket recommendation. No search engine, standard or platform requires this.
Technical Score: Not scoredA MaxiMarket recommendation without an external requirement.
How MaxiMarket detects it: Reports when the same case-normalized hreflang value appears on more than one inspected alternate link.
Sources: MaxiMarket recommendation without an external source.

Structured data (general)

STRUCTURED-JSONLD-003MaxiMarket recommendation · MaxiMarket best practiceJSON-LD declares a usable typeStructured dataWarning when failedNot scoredTechnical SearchAI DiscoveryMachine Readability

What this checks: Whether valid JSON-LD declares at least one usable @type.
Why it matters: Schema.org organizes its vocabulary as types with associated properties, and structured data features are defined per type. MaxiMarket flags untyped JSON-LD because consumers cannot tell what it describes.
How to fix: Add an @type with a Schema.org type name to each entity in the JSON-LD.

Expected: Each structured data entity declares a Schema.org type, such as Product.
Applies to: Pages with at least one valid JSON-LD block.
Authority: MaxiMarket recommendation · MaxiMarket best practiceMaxiMarket recommendation. No search engine, standard or platform requires this.
Technical Score: Not scoredA MaxiMarket recommendation; untyped JSON-LD is not invalid.
How MaxiMarket detects it: Reports when at least one JSON-LD block is valid but no normalized @type name is found within the bounded traversal.
Sources: Schema.org data model — Schema.org, verified 2026-09-26