Google has released a new feature in its Lighthouse extension for Chrome and this is what Google tells us:
We are pleased to announce that we are introducing another category within the Lighthouse Chrome extension: SEO Audit.
Lighthouse is an automated open-source auditing tool to improve the quality of web pages. It provides a well-lit path to improving site quality by allowing developers to run audits for performance, accessibility, progressive web application compatibility, and more. Basically, “it prevents you from crashing into the rocks on the coast”, hence the name Faro (Lighthouse).
The SEO audit category within Lighthouse allows developers and webmasters to perform a basic SEO check for any web page identifying potential areas for improvement. Lighthouse runs locally in your Chrome browser, allowing you to run SEO audits on pages in a staging environment, as well as live pages, public pages, and pages that require authentication.
Bringing SEO best practices to you
The current list of SEO audits is not an exhaustive list, nor does it offer any SEO guarantees for Google web search or other search engines. The current list of audits was designed to validate and reflect the basic SEO concepts that every site should correct, and provides detailed guidance for developers and SEO professionals of all skill levels. In the future, we hope to add more and more comprehensive audits and guides; Please let us know if you have suggestions for specific audits you would like to see.
How to use it
There are currently two ways to run these audits.
Using the Lighthouse Chrome extension:
- Install the Lighthouse Chrome Extension
- Click the Lighthouse icon in the extension bar
- Select Options menu, “SEO” and click OK, then generate a report
Using the development tools Chrome in Chrome Canary:
- Open Chrome Developer Tools
- Go to Audit
- Click Perform an audit
- Check the “SEO” checkbox and click Run audit.
The current Lighthouse Chrome extension contains an initial set of SEO audits that we plan to expand and improve in the future. Once we are confident in its functionality, we will make audits available by default in the stable version of Chrome Developer Tools.
We hope you find this functionality useful for your current and future projects. If these basic SEO tips are totally new to you and you find yourself interested in this area, be sure to read our SEO Beginner's Guide!.
Source: Official Google Webmaster Blog