Audit

Audit Standard / 2026.4

Rule explorer: Audit Standard 2026.4

Every check that defines technical readiness in MaxiMarket Audit Standard 2026.4, 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.

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

Version
2026.4
Status
Current
Published
2026-10-01
Rules
94
Scored
74
Observations
34

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

Filter

Showing 0 rules and 27 observations.

Observations

Observations are neutral facts. They are never pass or fail, never warnings, and never part of the Technical Score.

HTTP-REDIRECT-002Observation · not scoredRedirect hopsHTTP and retrievalTechnical Search
What is reported
The number of redirects followed to reach the final URL (0 when none).
Why it is not a rule
Google follows up to 10 hops; a one-hop threshold would be a MaxiMarket heuristic.
Sources
ACCESS-CHALLENGE-001Observation · not scoredRetrieval without a challengeAI crawler access and policyTechnical SearchAI Discovery
What is reported
Whether MaxiMarket received the page content (retrieved) or an access-control, bot-challenge or authentication page (blocked). Reported also for blocked results.
Why it is not a rule
MaxiMarket's network and user agent are not a search crawler's, so a block here is evidence, not proof that crawlers are blocked.
Sources
ACCESS-STATUS-001Observation · not scoredStatus of the blocking responseAI crawler access and policyTechnical SearchAI Discovery
What is reported
For blocked results only: whether the challenge or access-denied response used an error status (error-status) or a success status (success-status).
Why it is not a rule
Only blocked results are concerned, and they are never evaluated as pages.
Sources
INDEX-NOINDEX-002Observation · not scoredCrawler-specific indexing exclusionsIndexing and snippet directivesTechnical SearchAI Discovery
What is reported
The crawler names (for example googlebot) that receive noindex or none through a crawler-named robots meta element or a user-agent-prefixed X-Robots-Tag directive. Present only when at least one exists.
Why it is not a rule
Excluding a page for one crawler is a policy choice, not a technical defect.
Sources
INDEX-SNIPPET-001Observation · not scoredSnippet restrictionsIndexing and snippet directivesTechnical SearchAI Discovery
What is reported
The snippet-restricting rules declared for any crawler: nosnippet, max-snippet (any value other than -1), max-image-preview-none, max-video-preview (any value other than -1), and data-nosnippet when elements use it. Present only when at least one exists.
Why it is not a rule
Snippet restrictions (which also remove eligibility for Google AI features) are an owner's choice.
Sources
INDEX-UNAVAILABLE-AFTER-001Observation · not scoredunavailable_afterIndexing and snippet directivesTechnical Search
What is reported
For pages declaring unavailable_after: whether the date is in the future, has expired at the audit time, or could not be read.
Why it is not a rule
An expired unavailable_after is often intentional, for example for events or offers.
Sources
SEO-CANONICAL-009Observation · not scoredSelf-referencing canonicalCanonicalizationTechnical SearchAI Discovery
What is reported
For pages with a parseable canonical: whether it resolves (ignoring fragments) to the final URL (self) or to another URL (other).
Why it is not a rule
A canonical pointing elsewhere is often correct, for example for parameter variants.
Sources
SEO-TITLE-003Observation · not scoredDocument title lengthDocument metadataTechnical Search
What is reported
The title length in characters, for pages with a non-empty title.
Why it is not a rule
Google sets no title length limit and truncates titles to fit the device width, so no threshold is a requirement.
Sources
SEO-DESCRIPTION-003Observation · not scoredMeta description lengthDocument metadataTechnical Search
What is reported
The meta description length in characters, for pages with a non-empty description.
Why it is not a rule
Google sets no meta description length limit and truncates snippets as needed.
Sources
SEO-HEADING-002Observation · not scoredNumber of h1 elementsHeadings and semantic structureTechnical SearchMachine Readability
What is reported
The number of h1 elements in the returned HTML.
Why it is not a rule
Multiple h1 elements are valid HTML, and Google says there is no ideal number of headings.
Sources
RENDER-TEXT-001Observation · not scoredText in the initial HTMLRendering and JavaScriptTechnical SearchAI Discovery
What is reported
The number of characters of text (whitespace collapsed) in the body of the HTML as served, outside script, style, template and noscript. Not reported for browser audits, which inspect the rendered document.
Why it is not a rule
Any threshold for "enough" text would be a MaxiMarket heuristic.
Sources
STRUCTURED-JSONLD-001Observation · not scoredJSON-LD blocksStructured data (general)Technical SearchAI DiscoveryMachine Readability
What is reported
The number of JSON-LD script blocks in the returned HTML.
Why it is not a rule
Not every page needs structured data, and Microdata or RDFa are not detected.
Sources
STRUCTURED-PRODUCT-011Observation · not scoredProducts on the pageProduct and Offer dataTechnical SearchCommerceMachine Readability
What is reported
The number of top-level Product entities that are not variants of a ProductGroup, for pages with Product data.
Why it is not a rule
Listing pages legitimately contain many Products, and page intent is unknown.
Sources
STRUCTURED-OFFER-005Observation · not scoredZero-price offersProduct and Offer dataTechnical SearchCommerceMachine Readability
What is reported
The number of inspected Offers whose price is zero, for pages with inspected Offers.
Why it is not a rule
Zero prices are legitimate for free items and Product snippets; they only affect merchant-listing eligibility.
Sources
STRUCTURED-OFFER-013Observation · not scoredOffer types usedProduct and Offer dataTechnical SearchCommerceMachine Readability
What is reported
For Products with recognized offers: whether they use Offer, AggregateOffer or both.
Why it is not a rule
Marketplace pages legitimately use AggregateOffer, and the number of sellers is unknowable.
Sources
STRUCTURED-RATING-003Observation · not scoredReviews on Organization markupRatings and reviewsTechnical SearchMachine Readability
What is reported
For pages with top-level Organization (or subtype) entities: whether one of them carries review or aggregateRating.
Why it is not a rule
Whether the business controls those reviews is not observable.
Sources
STRUCTURED-BREADCRUMB-003Observation · not scoredBreadcrumbs on deep pagesEntity and site identityTechnical SearchAI DiscoveryMachine Readability
What is reported
For pages other than the home page: whether a BreadcrumbList is declared.
Why it is not a rule
Breadcrumb markup is a MaxiMarket recommendation for deep pages.
Sources
INDEX-ROBOTSTXT-001Observation · not scoredrobots.txtCrawl control and crawler accessTechnical SearchAI Discovery
What is reported
Whether robots.txt at the final origin is present, not found (404 or 410), answered a server error, or was otherwise unavailable.
Why it is not a rule
robots.txt is optional; without it crawlers may access any resource.
Sources
CRAWL-ROBOTSTXT-004Observation · not scoredrobots.txt fields beyond the common setCrawl control and crawler accessTechnical SearchAI Discovery
What is reported
For retrieved robots.txt files: the field names other than user-agent, allow, disallow and sitemap (for example crawl-delay), possibly none.
Why it is not a rule
Support for other fields differs by crawler: Google ignores crawl-delay while Anthropic honors it.
Sources
CRAWL-SITEMAP-REF-001Observation · not scoredSitemap references in robots.txtCrawl control and crawler accessTechnical SearchAI Discovery
What is reported
For retrieved robots.txt files: whether at least one Sitemap line is declared.
Why it is not a rule
robots.txt is one documented way to publish sitemaps, not a requirement.
Sources
INDEX-SITEMAP-001Observation · not scoredXML sitemapSitemapsTechnical SearchAI Discovery
What is reported
Whether a selected sitemap was found, all were not found, none could be selected, or retrieval was otherwise unavailable.
Why it is not a rule
Google recommends sitemaps only for some sites, which the audit cannot determine.
Sources
INDEX-SITEMAP-008Observation · not scoredPage listed in a sitemapSitemapsTechnical SearchAI Discovery
What is reported
Whether the page's canonical URL (or final URL) appears in an inspected urlset (listed), or not in any when every selected sitemap was a fully inspected urlset (not-listed).
Why it is not a rule
Absence may be an inspection-limit artifact on larger sites.
Sources
INTL-HREFLANG-003Observation · not scoredhreflang x-defaultInternational (hreflang)Technical Search
What is reported
Whether x-default is declared, for pages with at least two other hreflang languages and complete hreflang inspection.
Why it is not a rule
x-default is optional and designed for language selector pages.
Sources
SOCIAL-OG-SITENAME-001Observation · not scoredOpen Graph site nameSocial metadataTechnical SearchAI DiscoverySocial Discovery
What is reported
Whether og:site_name is present, for pages that declare any well-formed og:* meta property.
Why it is not a rule
og:site_name is optional in the Open Graph protocol.
Sources
CRAWL-POLICY-001Observation · not scoredDeclared crawler policyAI crawler access and policyTechnical SearchAI Discovery
What is reported
For the audited URL and every crawler in the 2026.4 crawler registry (search, AI search, AI agent, AI training and other known crawlers): allowed, partially-restricted (the URL is allowed but the applicable group disallows other paths) or disallowed, each with "-by-default" when no group names the crawler (inherited from the * group, or no rules). Present when robots.txt was retrieved, or returned 404/410, and could be fully inspected, also when the page itself was not retrieved.
Why it is not a rule
Which crawlers a site allows is the owner's policy, never a defect. robots.txt states preferences; it does not enforce access and does not show that a crawler can reach the page.
Sources