ShipworkSite inspection
Checks

Crawlability

PaginationAre paginated pages set up right?Internal searchIs site search eating crawl budget?URL parametersAre parameters creating duplicates?Log analyserWhat does Googlebot actually crawl?Robots builderNeed a robots.txt file?Soft 404sAre pages “not found” but returning 200?JavaScriptCan crawlers see it without running JS?FreshnessIs my site quietly going stale?Robots.txtDoes robots.txt say what I think?

Indexing

Sitemap lastmodAre my sitemap dates valid?SitemapIs my sitemap actually fetchable?IndexingIs Google allowed to index my pages?CanonicalsIs Google indexing the wrong URL?Index signalsDo sitemap and index signals agree?Redirect builderNeed the redirect rules?RedirectsAre my URLs answering directly, over HTTPS?

On-page

Keyword ideasWhat are people searching for?SERP previewHow does my page look in Google?Content qualityAre your pages too thin or too alike?Image weightAre images slowing the page?CannibalizationAre pages competing with each other?On-page checkDoes the page use its target phrase?ImagesAre my images accessible and loading?DuplicatesDo my pages compete for one query?

Links

Orphan pagesWhich pages can no link reach?Link graphHow deep do your pages sit?Anchor textDo links say what they point at?Outbound linksAre external links still alive?Broken linksAre internal links sending visitors nowhere?

Structured data

Rich resultsIs my markup eligible for a rich result?Structured dataIs my product schema valid?Schema coverageDo my key pages carry structured data?Social previewHow does my page look when shared?Schema vs pageDoes markup match the page price?Schema builderNeed valid JSON-LD?

International

Hreflang sitemapDo page and sitemap hreflang agree?HreflangDo my language versions link back?Hreflang builderNeed the hreflang tags?Redirect planMy site has dead links — what redirects do I write?Sitemap diffIs anything missing from my sitemap?Robots simulatorWhat does my robots.txt actually block?Can Googlebot?Can Googlebot fetch this URL?
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Who links to your site?

Links from other sites are the clearest external signal a site has, and they are almost invisible from the site itself. This check reads two sources of public link data and reports what each says, or says plainly that the data is not available rather than reporting zero as if it were nothing.

Runs the full free audit, not an isolated backlink lookup. Nothing is stored.

What this check inspects

Shipwork reads an open web-crawl index for the number of domains that link to yours and lists a few of them, then, when the crawl has nothing to say and the search-engine inbound-link data is available, reads the search engine own count and names the most linked page. The two sources are complementary: the crawl is general but lags and misses young or small sites, and the search engine data is current but only answers for a site that has been verified. A site absent from the crawl is recorded as a zero, so "we looked and found nothing" never reads as "we never looked".

What a failure means

This check does not grade your links. No linking domains found in the crawl is a warning, worded so it is clear the crawl was read and simply found none. When neither source has anything compiled for the site yet, it says so as a note rather than reporting zero links as fact. There is no error state: the numbers are reported as context, and no provider is named.

How to fix it

  1. Read the linking domains as context, not a score: a young site with few links is unproven, not penalised.
  2. Compare the list over time. Losing linking domains matters more than gaining a few.
  3. If the crawl found nothing, remember it lags and misses small sites; a verified site can read its own search-engine link data.
  4. Treat an unexpected linking domain as a question: a scraper, a directory or a partner you do not recognise is worth a look.

A typical failure, worked through

The setupA store has been linked by a handful of supplier sites and one local directory. The open web-crawl index has not yet picked the domain up because it is young.

What the check reportsThe check reports that no domains linking to the site were found in the crawl, then, where the search-engine data is available for the verified site, reports the inbound-link count and the most linked page instead.

The pointTwo sources with different blind spots. Reporting a zero from the crawl as the whole truth would say the site has no links when the search engine can see several.

Questions

Does this show keyword or backlink volumes?
No. It reports linking domains and inbound-link counts from public data. Search volumes and a full commercial backlink index are licensed data this does not claim.
Why does it sometimes report nothing?
The open web-crawl index lags and misses young or small sites. A zero from the crawl is recorded so it is clear the data was read and the site was simply absent, and the search-engine data is used instead where it is available.
Which sources does it use?
An open web-crawl index first, then the search-engine inbound-link data when the crawl has nothing and the data is available. No provider is named in the result.
Is a low link count a penalty?
No. Domain age and link count correlate with authority, but neither is a switch. The check reports what public data shows, as context.

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