The difference between a site that degrades slowly and one that doesn't
Every website drifts over time. Pages go stale. Links break. Plugins accumulate. Styles get inconsistent. Accessibility regressions sneak in through well-intentioned content updates. Analytics lose their configuration. Governance gaps quietly compound.
Organizations that manage this well don't have fewer problems. They catch them earlier and address them before they become crises. The mechanism that makes this possible is a scheduled, structured annual review.
This checklist covers every dimension of website health that a digital specialist or web manager should examine once a year. It's designed to be used: print it, adapt it to your CMS and team structure, and work through it in the last quarter of your fiscal year.
Technical health
Broken links and 404 errors
Run a comprehensive link check using a tool like Screaming Frog (free up to 500 URLs), Ahrefs Site Audit, or the free version of Dead Link Checker. Look for:
Fix or redirect broken internal links. Update or remove broken external links.
Redirect chains and redirect loops
Every time you've moved a page, you've added a redirect. Redirect chains (A redirects to B, B redirects to C) slow down page loads and confuse search engines. A redirect loop (A redirects to B, B redirects to A) breaks the page entirely.
Screaming Frog will flag these. Clean up any chains longer than one hop.
SSL certificate validity
Confirm your SSL certificate is valid and auto-renewing. A lapsed certificate shows visitors a security warning before they reach your site.
Core Web Vitals for top 20 pages
Pull your 20 highest-traffic pages from GA4 and review each in Google PageSpeed Insights. Note any pages with "Poor" ratings in any Core Web Vital. Document the specific issue (large unoptimized images, slow INP, CLS from images without dimensions). Add fixes to your Q1 backlog.
Server uptime and monitoring
Review your uptime monitoring logs for the year. Any downtime events worth documenting? Is monitoring in place for the year ahead?
Content quality
Pages with no traffic in the past 12 months
Export your full page list from GA4 and identify pages that received zero sessions in the past 12 months. These are candidates for archiving, consolidation, or deletion, a process described in more detail in this content audit guide for large websites. Ask: does this page serve a purpose that justifies its existence even if users don't find it through search? If not, archive it.
Pages with outdated dates or stale content
Look for pages that reference years or events that have passed, program details that have changed, staff names or contact information that's no longer current, and policy summaries that may have been superseded.
Build a list and assign updates to content owners with deadlines.
Content gaps from site search data
Pull your full year of internal site search terms from GA4. Look for high-volume searches that don't have a corresponding content page, or that return poor results. These represent content you should add in the coming year.
Duplicate or near-duplicate content
Pages that cover the same topic with different URLs can dilute search performance and confuse users. Use your CMS search and Screaming Frog's duplicate content detection to identify pages with very similar titles or headings.
Accessibility
Automated scan of top 20 pages
Run each of your top 20 pages through WAVE or Axe (browser extension), using a structured accessibility audit checklist if your team hasn't done this before. Document any critical or serious issues. Note whether the same issues appear across multiple pages (which signals a template-level problem rather than an individual content issue).
Keyboard navigation check
Keyboard-navigate your main user flows. Can you complete your service flows, contact forms, and navigation without a mouse? Any keyboard traps or focus order issues?
Alt text completeness
Use Screaming Frog or your CMS's image management view to check for images with missing or empty alt text. For images that aren't decorative, every alt attribute should have a meaningful value.
Readability and plain language check
Pick your five highest-traffic pages and read each one aloud. Flag any sections with complex sentence structure, undefined jargon, passive voice, or instructions that assume organizational knowledge. Add a plain language revision to your content backlog.
AODA or applicable accessibility compliance statement
Review your published accessibility statement. Is it current? Does it accurately reflect the level of compliance you've achieved and any known exceptions? Update it annually.
Analytics and measurement
GA4 configuration review
Check that your GA4 property is:
Review any goals or conversions you've set up and confirm they're still accurate for your site's current structure.
Year-over-year comparison
Pull a year-over-year comparison of your key metrics (organic traffic, task completion rates, search visibility, form submissions). Where did things improve? Where did they decline? What external factors (campaigns, news, seasonal patterns) explain any significant shifts?
Document your year-in-review summary and share it with leadership.
Search Console performance review
In Google Search Console → Performance → Search results, identify:
Governance
Content ownership review
Does every major section of your site have a named content owner? Review your content responsibility matrix. Have any owners changed roles or left the organization without a documented handover? Update ownership records.
Publishing workflow review
Are your approval workflows still configured correctly? Are there orphaned user accounts with publishing permissions that belong to staff who have left? Run a user audit in your CMS.
Style guide currency
When was your web style guide last reviewed? Are there new content types, new terminology, or policy changes that should be reflected? Schedule a style guide review session if it's more than 18 months out of date.
Domain and hosting renewals
Confirm the renewal dates for your domain registrations, hosting contracts, and any software licenses critical to your site. Set calendar reminders 60 days before each renewal.
Planning for the year ahead
After completing the audit, prioritize your findings into three categories:
Must-fix (Q1 priority): Broken functionality, critical accessibility failures, lapsed certificates, security vulnerabilities.
Should-fix (H1 plan): High-traffic pages with poor performance scores, significant content gaps, stale key pages, template-level accessibility issues.
Nice-to-have (H2 or annual plan): Low-traffic content consolidation, style guide updates, governance documentation improvements.
Present this priority list to your leadership with estimated effort and timeline. The annual review is also your best opportunity to advocate for resources to address long-standing website problems that have been deprioritized.
If you want a partner to help run this annual review or to turn the findings into an actionable roadmap, get in touch and we can make this year's website audit the one that actually leads to change.