Audit settings explained.
Beyond just running an audit, you can make it public, password-protect it, schedule rechecks, and wire up notifications. Here's every option and when to use it.
Accessing settings
Audit settings are available at two moments:
- Before an audit runs — click the 🔧 Settings button next to the URL input on the Dashboard before hitting Start audit. This expands a panel with every option below.
- After an audit exists — open the audit, click the ⋮ (three-dot menu), and choose Edit. This takes you to the same settings screen.
Both paths lead to the same four settings: Public audit, Password, Audit check interval, and Notifications.
Public audit
A toggle with an eye icon. When turned on, the audit becomes accessible to anyone who has the link — no Smart SEO Audit account required.
Use public audits when you want to:
- Share a report with a client who doesn't have their own account
- Link to an audit from a pitch email or proposal
- Embed or reference audit results in a public blog post
- Collaborate with a developer who needs to see the findings without signing up
When the toggle is off (private, the default), only you and any team members on your account can see the audit. The URL still exists, but requires authentication to view.
Public audits are not automatically listed in a directory or indexable by Google. They're "unlisted" — reachable only by direct link. Nobody finds a public audit by accident.
Password protection
For an extra layer of control on public audits, you can set a password. When someone visits the audit link, they'll be prompted to enter the password before the report loads.
This combines the sharing convenience of public audits with reasonable access control — useful when you want to share with specific people but not with anyone who might forward the link.
Set a password by typing one into the Password field in audit settings. Leave it empty to disable password protection.
Turn on Public audit, set a memorable password like the client's project name, and share the link + password separately (link in email, password in Slack or a follow-up message). Clean, professional, and mildly secure.
Audit check interval
By default an audit runs once. With an interval set, it re-runs automatically on a schedule. Available intervals:
- None (default) — one-off audit, no rechecks
- Every 6 hours — for very high-traffic pages or during active SEO projects
- Every 12 hours — twice-daily monitoring
- Daily — the most common interval for important pages
- Every few days — lighter monitoring for stable pages
When a scheduled audit runs, the new result is saved as a fresh version in your audit history. You can always look back and compare how the score has evolved over time.
The real value of scheduled audits comes when combined with notifications: you get alerted the moment something regresses, usually within hours of a bad deploy instead of weeks later when rankings drop.
Every scheduled audit counts against your monthly audit limit. A daily audit uses ~30 audits per month. Plan the interval based on your quota — or upgrade if you need more frequency. See the pricing page for per-plan scheduled-audit limits.
Notifications
When a scheduled audit runs, you can get notified — especially when something changes. Smart SEO Audit supports 13 notification channels:
| Channel | Use when |
|---|---|
| You want the report in your inbox, with the full summary | |
| Slack | Team collaboration — route audits to a #seo or #dev channel |
| Discord | Same as Slack, but for Discord-based communities and teams |
| Microsoft Teams | Corporate environments on the Microsoft stack |
| Telegram | Personal or small-team alerts on mobile |
| When Telegram isn't an option | |
| Google Chat | Google Workspace teams |
| SMS | Critical pages where you want alerts even offline |
| Phone call | For sites where a deploy regression is an emergency |
| Webhook | Wire audits into your own tools — CI/CD, Zapier, custom dashboards |
| Twitter tweet | Public-facing status updates (rarely the right fit) |
| Push notification | Via the PWA plugin for mobile/desktop push |
| Internal notification | Alerts inside Smart SEO Audit itself, visible on the bell icon |
To set up a notification for an audit, click + Create notification handler in the Notifications section of the audit settings. You'll be asked to pick a channel, provide the target (email address, webhook URL, Slack workspace, etc.), and confirm. The handler is then available for all future audits from your account, not just this one.
What triggers a notification
By default, notifications fire whenever a scheduled audit completes. You can choose to be notified only on meaningful changes — a score drop, a new failed check, an alert trigger — rather than every single run.
Editing audit settings later
Any setting you didn't configure up front can be changed later:
- Open the audit
- Click the three-dot menu (⋮) in the top right
- Choose Edit
You land on the Edit audit screen with the same four settings. Make your changes and click Update. The URL field is read-only — the audit is bound to a specific URL — but everything else can be adjusted at any time.