Getting started

How scoring works

A score is a count and nothing else: the checks your site passed, divided by the ones it was fair to ask, shown out of 100.

No weighting

Nothing is multiplied by a severity, and there is no overall figure beyond the plain total. 72 out of 100 means you passed 13 of the 18 checks in that segment, and the report names all five you did not. That is the only reason the number can be shown to somebody who asks where it came from, and every row opens into the checks behind it.

A question that cannot be asked is not scored zero

Programmatic SEO does not apply to a site of ten pages, and the report says so rather than scoring it nothing. The same goes for the questions we only ask a shop, or only a business with a place you can visit.

We read your site as a shop, a service or a publication, say which and why above the findings, and that verdict may only ever remove questions, never add one. A wrong guess is therefore always generous rather than accusing.

Every number reconciles

The figure at the top, the plan, and each segment’s count all come from the same outcomes. Only the worst twenty failures get a written explanation, because thirty of them is a report nobody finishes. The scorecard still lists every failure with what we saw, so nothing is hidden. Each one carries something to do whether or not it was written up.

One subtlety: a check counting toward several segments appears in each of their lists, so the per-segment counts add up to more than the header total. Each item says so where it appears, and the plan counts it once.

Two segments can only be seen from one side

Nothing in a page your server sends reveals who links to you, so Off-Page scores the presence your own site declares, and E-E-A-T the trust signals your pages carry rather than whether anyone finds you authoritative. Each says so beside its own score. There are eleven segments and a pool of more than 100 checks, and the ones your site is asked depend on what kind of site it is, and all of them are published.