SEO issue guide

On-page SEO

Titles, descriptions, headings, links and images

• Title tagWeight 10
• IndexabilityWeight 10
• Meta descriptionWeight 6
• H1 headingWeight 6
• Broken linksWeight 6
• Canonical tagWeight 4
• Image alt textWeight 4
• Heading structureWeight 3
• Internal linksWeight 3
• Language attributeWeight 2
• FaviconWeight 2
• URL structureWeight 2
• Link anchor textWeight 2

Content

Depth, keywords and readability

• Content lengthWeight 4
• Placeholder textWeight 4
• Keyword focusWeight 3
• Text-to-HTML ratioWeight 2
• ReadabilityWeight 2
• Sources and citationsWeight 1
• Content freshnessWeight 1
• Copyright yearWeight 1

Technical SEO

Crawling, indexing, redirects and site structure

• HTTP statusWeight 10
• HTTPSWeight 10
• HTTP to HTTPS redirectWeight 6
• Mobile viewportWeight 6
• www / non-wwwWeight 4
• robots.txtWeight 4
• XML sitemapWeight 4
• RedirectsWeight 3
• Error page (404)Weight 3
• Meta refreshWeight 3
• HreflangWeight 2
• DoctypeWeight 1
• Character encodingWeight 1
• Deprecated HTMLWeight 1
• Inline stylesWeight 1

Speed

Server response, page weight and loading

• Server response timeWeight 6
• CompressionWeight 4
• HTML sizeWeight 3
• HTTP/2Weight 3
• Render-blocking scriptsWeight 3
• Image optimisationWeight 3
• Resource countWeight 2
• Image dimensionsWeight 2
• Browser cachingWeight 2
• DOM sizeWeight 2
• Third-party scriptsWeight 2
• Responsive imagesWeight 2
• Lazy loadingWeight 1
• Resource hintsWeight 1

Security

HTTPS, certificates and security headers

• SSL certificateWeight 6
• Mixed contentWeight 5
• Form securityWeight 4
• Security headersWeight 3
• HSTSWeight 2
• Cookie security flagsWeight 2
• Server version disclosureWeight 1
• Plain-text email addressesWeight 1
• Safe external linksWeight 1

Social & rich results

Open Graph, X cards and structured data

• Structured dataWeight 4
• Open Graph tagsWeight 3
• Breadcrumb markupWeight 2
• X (Twitter) cardWeight 1
• og:url matches canonicalWeight 1

AI search readiness

Access and structure for AI search engines

• Content without JavaScriptWeight 5
• AI crawler accessWeight 4
• Snippet controlsWeight 3
• Answer-friendly structureWeight 2
• Author & date signalsWeight 2
• llms.txtWeight 1

Accessibility

Labels, names, landmarks and other WCAG basics

• Form labelsWeight 4
• Button namesWeight 3
• Link namesWeight 3
• Frame titlesWeight 2
• Unique IDsWeight 2
• Landmarks and skip linkWeight 2
• ARIA usageWeight 2
• Autoplaying mediaWeight 2
• Valid language codeWeight 2
• Alt text qualityWeight 2
• Keyboard orderWeight 1
• Table headersWeight 1
• Empty headingsWeight 1