SEO Audit

SEO Audit Summary

Eliminating errors in your pages shows search engines that your website is high quality and should be shown in the search results. The website audit tool runs weekly (Saturdays & Sundays) and checks your web pages for many different errors.

Checked page: the URL of the analyzed page. Click the URL to view the details of that page (see below).

Errors: the number of errors that were found on that page.

Warnings: the number of warnings that were found on that page.

Notices: the number of notices for that page.

Spelling mistakes: the number of spelling mistakes on that page.

Click depth: how many clicks the analyzed page is away from the start page. In general, pages that can be reached with fewer clicks are more important.

HTTP status code: the server result code for the page. A 200 code means that the page could be accessed. Codes 301 and 302 mean that the page redirects to another page. Everything above 400 means that there was an error when the audit tool tried to access the page.

Individual web page details

Clicking on the ‘details’ button presents all the information relevant to that particular page. This includes a complete breakdown of errors, warnings, notices and search engine crawler compatibility.

The general information box: contains general information about the analyzed page.

The search engine crawler compatibility box: see at a glance if the web page can be indexed by the most important search engines.

The referring pages box: shows up to five pages of your website that link to the analyzed page.

Complete List Of Errors, Warnings & Information Notices

Error – Broken links

A broken link is a link to a web page, image or other file that does not work anymore. Broken links lower the perceived quality of your website and they are not good for your website visitors.

Solution: the website audit report shows you the pages that contain the broken links. You will also see the exact links that are broken. Use the tool that you use to edit your web pages to correct the broken links on the page.

Error – Server errors

Server errors can have a negative influence on the rankings of your web pages. The server has trouble delivering the requested page, and that means that search engines cannot access it, either.

Solution: check the pages that show a server error. Either change the links that point to these pages or ask your web host and server administrator to correct the server problems. A server error can also be caused by an error in a PHP script.

Error – Timeout errors

A timeout error means that the web server did not respond when a page was requested. You might want to double-check if the linked page is always accessible. Search engines might not access the page. The speed of a web page is a factor in Google’s ranking algorithm.

Solution: check the web pages with the timeout error and make sure that your web server is always accessible.

Error – Empty titles

The title of a web page is a very important ranking element. The title is also used on search results pages to represent your web page. An empty title tag means that the web page won’t be listed and presented as well as possible.

Solution: enter a descriptive title on these web pages. The title should contain keywords that are related to the page and your business.

Error – Duplicate titles

It’s not advisable to use the same title on multiple web pages. The title of a web page should be unique and it should be related to the content of the web page.

Solution: enter a unique title on these web pages. Make the titles clear, predictable and irresistible.

Warning – No text content

If a web page does not have text content, there is nothing that search engines could index. Having text content on a web page is important if you want to rank that page on search engines.

Solution: add text content to the page.

Warning – Little text content

If a web page does not have much text content, it might be that search engines ignore the page. Pages with little content can get good rankings under some seldom circumstances but it is usually much better to have pages with more text.

Solution: add more text to the page. The text should make sense to human visitors and it should be related to the page and your company.

Warning – No bot allowed

If the robots.txt file of your website or the robots meta tag does not allow any bot to index the page, then search engines won’t show that page in the search results.

Solution: change the robots.txt file and/or the robots meta tag on the page so that search engines can index the page.

Warning – Bot blocked

The robots.txt file of your website or the robots meta tag of the page does not allow particular bot to index the page. That means that the corresponding search engine won’t show the page in the search results.

Solution: check if you really want to block this bot.

Warning – Click depth

The fewer clicks people need to get to a web page from the index page of a site, the more important is that page. Search engines tend to give pages that require a lot of clicks lower rankings than web pages that can be reached with a few clicks.

Solution: make sure that the important pages on your website can be reached with a few clicks from your home page.

Warning – Duplicate page

Duplicate content is not good for search engine rankings. If you have the same web page twice on your website, this can have a negative influence on the search engine positions of these pages.

Solution: if possible avoid duplicate pages. If you must have duplicate pages, use the canonical attribute to specify the main version of the page.

Warning – Duplicate paragraphs

Duplicate paragraphs can lead to duplicate content problems. The duplicate content check in the audit tool ignores boilerplate elements such as headers and footers. Other duplicate elements should be avoided.

Solution: remove the duplicate paragraphs from the page. Each page should have unique content.

Warning – 302 redirect

A 302 redirect code tells the search engines that the redirect is only temporary. 302 redirects are not good for search engine rankings.

Solution: if the redirect is not temporary, change the 302 redirect to a 301 redirect.

Warning – Too many links

If a page contains too many links, search engines might think that the page itself does not contain enough content. Search engines don’t want to show pages that just link to other pages in the search results.

Solution: if possible, remove some of the links to other websites from the page.

Warning – Duplicate canonical attribute

If a page uses the canonical attribute twice, search engine can get confused and skip the page.

Solution: remove the duplicate canonical attribute.

Warning – Meta description empty

The meta description tag helps search engines to display a useful snippet on the search results pages. A missing description tag means that the web page won’t be displayed as well as possible in the search results.

Solution: add a descriptive meta description to the page.

Warning – Meta description too short

The meta description should have at least 50 characters so that search engines will display it on the search results page.

Solution: use a longer meta description on the page.

Warning – Meta description too long

If the meta description is too long, search engines won’t display all of it on the search results pages. In addition, very long meta description might be interpreted as a spamming attempt.

Solution: use a shorter meta description.

Warning – Meta description wasted

The meta description of the page does not include useful words.

Solution: write a better meta description that is relevant to the page and your business. Boilerplate meta descriptions won’t do your website good. Include a call to action: think of what you want a user to do when they visit your page and then include a call to action in the description.

Warning – Meta refresh

The page uses a meta refresh tag. That means that search engines won’t index the page itself but the page to which the redirect goes.

Solution: remove the meta refresh or use a 301 redirect.

Warning – Duplicate meta tag

The page uses a meta tag twice. This can confuse search engines and it is an indicator of poor web page design.

Solution: remove the duplicate meta tag.

Warning – Page too big

The web page is very big and it takes a long time to load the page. Web page loading time is a factor in Google’s ranking algorithm.

Solution: split the page content into many smaller pages.

Warning – Title too short

A short title may not sufficiently describe the page to the search engine users and likely does not include relevant keywords for the search engines.

Solution: add a more descriptive title to the web page.

Warning – Title too long

You shouldn’t use more than 65-70 characters in a web page title because search engines will shorten your title then when displaying it on the search results page.

Solution: use a shorter web page title.

Warning – Title wasted

The web page title is a very important ranking element. If you get this error message, it seems that your title does not contain any meaningful keywords for the search engines.

Solution: add a more descriptive title to the web page.

Warning – Title tag used twice

If a web page uses the title tag twice, search engines can get confused. A duplicate title tag might be misinterpreted as a spamming attempt and it is an indicator of poor web page design.

Solution: remove the duplicate title tag.

Warning – URL invalid

If a page URL contains characters which are not allowed in URLs then Search engines might not index the page for that reason (although your browser might be able to display the page).

Solution: remove the invalid characters from the web page URL.

Warning – Too many URL parameters

Search engine representatives have warned against using more than two parameters in the URL of a web page. Search engines might exclude the page from crawling if it contains many more parameters.

Solution: remove the as many parameters as possible from the URL. If necessary, rewrite the URLs on your website so that they do not contain any variables at all.

Warning – URL too long

A good URL is descriptive and concise so that it can be used in email messages, tweets or submission forms. Search engines might not look for ranking information in long URLs.

Solution: if possible, use a shorter URL for the page.

Information – Anchor text wasted

The anchor text that is used in links influences the search engine position of the linked website. While it’s normally that website has links with the anchor text “click here”, it is usually better if the text contains a keyword that is related to the linked page, for example, “click here for high-end car audio systems”.

Solution: use a more meaningful anchor text with these links.

Information – H1 tag and title don’t share keyword

There’s anecdotal evidence that it improves the position of a web page if the page title and the H1 headline tag share the targeted keyword.

Solution: adjust the title or the H1 tag so that the keywords match.

Information – H1 tag empty

When you get this error, the page uses the H1 headline tag but it’s empty. You might want to add a real headline (with keywords) to the page.

Solution: add an H1 headline to the page.

Information – H1 tag missing

The H1 headline tag helps you to describe the contents of a web page. For best results, it should contain keywords that are related to the page and your business.

Solution: add a descriptive H1 headline that contains keywords to the page.

Information – Image problems

Images on your web pages should have a descriptive IMG ALT attribute. That attribute makes your web pages more accessible for people with screen readers and it also helps search engines to index your content correctly. In addition, the images should have height and width attributes to make sure that browsers render the page as quickly as possible.

Solution: make sure that all images have a description IMG ALT attribute and width and height attributes.

Information – Meta robots none

The meta robots none attribute means that search engines should not index a web page and that they also should not follow the links on the page.

Solution: double check if you really want to block all robots.

Information – Meta robots nofollow

The meta robots nofollow attribute tells search engines that the links on a page should not be followed. That means that search engines might not follow the links to other pages on your website.

Solution: double check if you really want to block all links on the page.

Information – Meta robots noindex

The meta robots noindex attribute can help you to exclude particular search engines from your web pages. If you use the tag incorrectly, you might block all search engines.

Solution: double check if you really want to block all robots.

Information – Meta robots nosnippet

The meta robots nosnippet attribute tells search engines that the web page should be displayed without a snippet on the search engine results page. That can have a negative influence on the number of clicks that your search result listings gets.

Solution: double check if you really want to hide the snippet.

Information – 301 permanent redirect

A 301 redirect tells search engines that the web page URL does not exist anymore and that the page now can be found under a new URL.

Solution: check if you really want to redirect the page. If possible, change the links that point to the redirect URL.

Information – 303 redirect

A 303 redirect is the correct way to redirect web applications to a new URL, particularly after an HTTP POST has been performed. This response indicates that the correct response can be found under a different URL and should be retrieved using a GET method. The specified URL is not a substitute reference for the original resource.

Solution: check if you really want to redirect the page with a 303 redirect.

Information – 307 redirect

A 307 redirect is a temporary redirect. The response code means that the request should be repeated with another URL; however, future requests should still use the original URL.
In contrast to how 302 was historically implemented, the request method is not allowed to be changed when reissuing the original request. For instance, a POST request repeated using another POST request.

Solution: check if you really want to redirect the page with a 307 redirect.

Information – Meta refresh tag to the same page

This message is displayed if a page uses the meta refresh tag to redirect to itself. This might not be what you intended.

Solution: check if the meta refresh tag is correct. The World Wide Web Consortium recommends to avoid this tag.

Information – URL contains uppercase characters

This message is displayed if some of the URLs on your page use uppercase characters while the majority uses lower case characters. If you use the same URL elsewhere with only lower case characters, this can lead to duplicate content problems.
Technically, search engines treat “/my-page.html” and “/My-page.html” differently. To avoid indexing problems, it is recommended to use lower case URLs.

Solution: make sure that you use the same capitalization in all links to the same page.

Information – Canonical attribute used

This message is displayed if the page contains a canonical attribute that points to another URL. That means that the page won’t be indexed by search engines. They will index the page that is used in the canonical attribute instead.

Solution: make sure that the canonical attribute on the page is correct.