How to Use SEO PowerSuite to Audit a Site and Fix the Errors
By Joris van Huët
Enterprise Interim CMO & Marketing Leader · 15+ years · 50+ orgs
Published
2026-10-24
The short answer: the free version of WebSite Auditor crawls 500 URLs, which is a full audit of a small site and a sample of a large one. Build a project for the whole site or for a list of URLs, slow the crawler down if your server pushes back, fix Site Audit errors before warnings, run a page audit on the pages that bring in revenue, rebuild the project after the fixes, and on a paid licence schedule that rebuild with an email alert.
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An audit tool is good at producing a long list. The work is deciding which three items on it matter this week. WebSite Auditor helps by grading every factor, and the steps below follow its manual. For the suite as a whole, see the SEO PowerSuite glossary entry.
Size the crawl first:
- Count your URLs against the free cap. For example, a shop with 1 home page, 120 category pages and 1,800 product pages has 1 + 120 + 1,800 = 1,921 pages, nearly four times the 500 URLs the free version crawls, per the pricing page. List mode on the 500 that matter is the free way through; Professional at $349 a year (checked on 24 October 2026) removes the cap.
- Start from what Google already holds. The orphan-page option compares the crawl with Google's index and your XML sitemap, per the crawler settings manual, so have the sitemap address and Search Console to hand.
- Write down the error count before you fix anything. After a rebuild, Site Audit reports only what remains, per the Site Audit manual. The before-and-after count is your measure.
What you need before you start
- WebSite Auditor installed. The free download for Windows, macOS or Linux is on the homepage, and the installer can add the other three tools at the same time, per the installation guide.
- Someone who can change the site. CMS access or a developer's time; the audit only finds issues.
- A Google PageSpeed Insights API key for Core Web Vitals in bulk, per the page speed manual.
- A paid licence for the last step only. Saving projects, scheduling and report delivery are not in the free version.
Step one: build the project
When WebSite Auditor starts for the first time a wizard opens; after that, the New button on the toolbar opens it, per the project manual. Choose Entire website to start at the home page and follow every internal link, or List mode to audit only the URLs you paste. The manual warns that a full crawl of a big site can take several hours, and that crawl limits under expert options shorten it.
Step two: set the crawler
Tick Enable expert options in the wizard to reach the crawler settings, per the crawler manual. Follow robots.txt for all bots or for one, crawl as a chosen user agent (mobile ones included), limit the scan depth, and switch on Search for orphan pages. Filters can collect only URLs that contain certain words or skip others. Excluded pages are still crawled, the manual notes, and simply left out of the project.
Step three: slow down for a strict server
Valid pages that come back as 403, 400 or 500 errors usually mean a server that limits crawlers, per the slower sites manual. Set the Number of Tasks to 1 or 2 under Preferences > Misc Global Settings. Then, in expert options, cap the request rate; for servers that block, the manual suggests 1 request every 10 seconds.
Step four: triage the Site Audit
The Site Audit tab marks every site-level factor as Correct, Info, Warning or Error, per the Site Audit manual. The manual's order is the useful one: errors first, warnings where they apply, info items to confirm things are as designed. Each factor opens with a description, the affected URLs and how-to-fix advice. Quick Export of a section is Enterprise only; the manual's other route is a right-click to copy to the clipboard.
Step five: audit the pages that earn money
Under Page Audit, enter a page URL and a couple of target keywords, then Run Audit, per the technical audit manual. One run fills both reports. Technical Audit covers availability, mobile friendliness, Core Web Vitals on desktop and mobile, encoding, URLs and links. Content Audit compares your keyword use with the 20 most relevant competitors, chosen from the top 100 results for your keywords, per the content audit manual.
Step six: check Core Web Vitals in bulk
Add your PageSpeed Insights API key in the project settings, select pages in the Pages module, click Update Pages and choose the Page Speed set, per the page speed manual. Results fall into five groups: summary, field data, lab data, opportunities and diagnostics. Field data reflects real visitors. Lab data is the one to debug with.
Step seven: rebuild after the fixes
Once the changes are live, click Rebuild Project in the toolbar, per the rebuild manual. If you enable expert options, the manual recommends unticking the factors to update, which saves a lot of time. For a few new pages, Add Pages is quicker than a full rebuild.
Step eight: schedule the re-check
On a paid licence, open Preferences > Scheduled Tasks & Alerts, click Add, and choose the task type: rebuild, data update, export or report, per the scheduling manual. Pick one project or a group of 3 to 5; only saved projects appear. Then edit the task and add email alerts with the triggers you care about, per the alerts manual.
Before the result goes to anyone else, check the licence. Printing works on Professional and Enterprise, while saving as PDF or HTML, sharing a link, FTP upload and email are Enterprise only, per the report publishing manual.
Where the manual says audits go wrong
- Forgetting the rebuild. Fixed errors stay on the list until the project is re-crawled, per the Site Audit manual.
- Reading a server block as a broken page. The 4xx and 5xx codes from a strict server are a crawler problem first, per the slower sites manual.
- Expecting a URL filter to shorten the crawl. It shortens the project, not the crawl, per the crawler manual.
- Planning a schedule on the free version. Scheduled tasks list saved projects only.
SEO PowerSuite sells a year of licence at a time, and its pricing FAQ rules out refunds for unused months. So run the whole audit on the free version, and buy only when the 500-URL cap is the one thing in the way.
FAQ
How many pages can the free version audit?
500 URLs, per the pricing page. Paid licences crawl entire sites.
Why are working pages listed with 4xx or 5xx codes?
Usually because the server limits crawlers. Lower the number of tasks to 1 or 2 and the request rate, as the slower sites manual describes, then rebuild.
Do I need Enterprise to send the audit to someone?
To email it, share a link or save it as PDF or HTML, yes, per the report publishing manual. Professional can print reports, with watermarks, per the pricing page.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
I am Joris van Huët, an enterprise interim CMO. 15+ years, 50+ organizations, including ING, P&G, Nestlé, BNP Paribas, WeTransfer and Vinted. I take on innovation projects (venture building, design sprints), agentic marketing (setting up and running AI agents) and hands-on multi-channel work. See the track record.
I wrote and published this with AI assistance, and I answer for it. Claims about my own experience are limited to the track record above, and a statistic links to its source or is labelled as an example. I sell interim and fractional CMO work, which is why this site exists. How this site is written.
A senior operator doing the work: campaigns, channels, CRM and AI agents, live from day one.