About this tool

This tool checks a set of observable technical and structural signals that can affect whether a page is accessible, crawlable, understandable and technically eligible for Google Search, Google News and Google Discover.

It is not a complete SEO audit, a full Google News audit, or a guarantee of performance. It focuses on signals that can be measured from the page source, HTTP responses, structured data, metadata, images and related resources — without requiring human editorial judgement.

What the tool checks

Crawler access and indexability

• whether the page returns a successful HTTP response
• whether browser-like requests can access the page
• whether simulated Googlebot and Googlebot-Image requests receive different responses to a standard browser
• whether robots.txt allows relevant Google crawlers
• whether robots meta directives are present and correctly configured
• whether canonical tags are consistent and present
• whether redirect chains are clean

Metadata and structured data

• whether title, H1 and meta description are detectable
• whether Article or NewsArticle JSON-LD is present and valid
• whether key structured data fields are populated — including author, datePublished, dateModified, headline and publisher
• whether Open Graph and Twitter Card tags are present

Image eligibility

• whether a representative image is present and discoverable
• whether images meet the 1200px minimum width recommended for Google Discover rich presentation
• whether images are accessible to Googlebot-Image requests
• whether image caching headers are appropriate
• whether images are served from a robots.txt-allowed path

Publisher transparency

• whether About, Contact, Privacy Policy and Terms pages are detectable
• whether a visible byline is present in the page content
• whether a visible publication date is present
• whether author and publisher are declared in structured data

Content signals

• whether the headline or title contains patterns commonly associated with clickbait or sensational language
• whether policy-sensitive topic signals are present — such as gambling, adult content, financial promotion or health claims
• whether strong profanity is detectable in prominent content areas

These checks flag observable patterns only. They do not assess headline quality, writing style or whether content is appropriate — that requires editorial judgement.

Server and caching signals

• whether the page and images return appropriate caching headers
• whether a CDN is detected
• whether Vary headers may cause inconsistent responses

Page experience signals

• whether the hero or lead image uses lazy loading (which can affect Discover presentation)
• whether intrusive interstitials are detected before the article content
• whether a high density of ad slots appears before the article body

Sitemaps and feeds

• whether a sitemap is declared in robots.txt and is accessible
• whether a news sitemap is present and recently updated
• whether RSS or Atom feeds are discoverable and valid

What the tool does not check

This tool does not assess factors that require editorial or human judgement. It does not evaluate:

• editorial quality or writing standard
• whether a headline is good, accurate or appropriate — only whether it contains flagged patterns
• image quality, relevance or composition
• factual accuracy or originality
• author expertise or credentials
• site reputation or brand authority
• topical authority or link quality
• user engagement or content usefulness
• Core Web Vitals or real-world page speed
• whether a story is newsworthy
• whether Google will choose to feature the page in Discover, Top Stories or any other surface

Those factors require human judgement, Search Console data, wider site analysis and editorial context.

Googlebot simulation note

This tool sends requests using Googlebot and Googlebot-Image user-agent strings. These are simulated requests — they do not come from verified Google IP addresses and are not validated by reverse DNS.

When a plain HTTP request is blocked (e.g. HTTP 403), the tool automatically retries using a stealth headless Chromium browser with bot-detection evasion. If the browser succeeds where the plain request failed, the block is almost certainly targeting automated HTTP clients by TLS fingerprint or IP range — not real browsers or Google's Chromium-based rendering service. In that case, the stealth browser result is used as the basis for content, structured data and image analysis, and the 403 warning is downgraded accordingly.

A blocked or different response to a simulated Googlebot request does not prove that real Googlebot is blocked. Treat it as a warning to investigate further using Google Search Console, server logs, CDN logs or verified Googlebot IP checks.

How to interpret the results

Use this audit as a technical eligibility and risk check, not a definitive verdict.

• Critical issues are likely to affect crawling, access or indexing.
• High issues may materially affect how the page is understood or presented.
• Medium issues are worth reviewing but may not prevent visibility on their own.
• Low and informational items are context, improvements or operational checks rather than major eligibility problems.

A clean result means the page passed the technical checks in this tool. It does not guarantee ranking, inclusion in Google News or recommendation in Google Discover.

Recommended use

This tool is most useful for:

• checking individual article pages for technical issues before publishing or investigating a traffic drop
• spotting blocked or inconsistent crawler responses
• validating structured data and metadata completeness
• reviewing image eligibility signals for Discover
• checking robots, canonical and indexing directives
• identifying missing publisher transparency signals
• flagging content policy or sensational language patterns worth reviewing

For a full assessment, combine this audit with:

• Google Search Console data
• Google News and Discover performance data
• crawl data and server logs
• Core Web Vitals and page speed data
• editorial review and content quality assessment
• manual checks in Google Search, Google News and Discover surfaces

In short

This tool does not tell you whether Google will feature a page.

It tells you whether the page has observable technical barriers, missing signals or flagged patterns that could make it harder for Google to access, understand or present the content — and that are worth investigating before drawing wider conclusions.