Read the SEO audit
Understand the overall score, the five categories, how severe each issue is and how the audit crosses with Search Console to show what costs traffic.
In this article · 4 sections
After an audit finishes, the SEO tab in Performance shows what the crawl found. There are two readings: the Audit report, which scores the site and lists the issues, and the Search Console cross-check (Pages by impact and Where the opportunity is), which shows which issues sit on pages that actually get search traffic. Start with the cross-check; it tells you where to begin.
Before you start
- You need a verified domain and at least one Completed audit. See Turn on the site SEO audit.
- The cross-check requires Search Console connected to the client. Without it, you only see the audit report.
The audit report
- On-page81
- Content64
- Technical88
- GEO52
- Links70
| Issue | Severity | Pages |
|---|---|---|
| Noindex | Critical | 2 |
| HTTP error | Critical | 4 |
| Missing meta description | Warning | 17 |
| Thin content | Info | 23 |
- 1Overall score and the audit’s numbers.
- 2Categories: each area’s score, from 0 to 100.
- 3Issues: problems by severity, with how many pages have each one.
Overall score and categories
The Overall score goes from 0 to 100 and is the weighted average of five categories:
On-page
- Weight
- 25%
- What it checks
- Title up to 60 characters, meta description up to 160, a single H1 and canonical
Content
- Weight
- 25%
- What it checks
- Text with 300 words or more (half credit between 150 and 299), H2 subheadings, images with alt text and unique titles across pages
Technical
- Weight
- 20%
- What it checks
- Pages without errors (responses below 400), without
noindex, and load time: full credit up to 800 ms at p75, half up to 1,500 ms
GEO
- Weight
- 20%
- What it checks
- Readiness for AI answers: structured data (JSON-LD), at least 3 sharing tags, meta description and text with 300 words or more
Links
- Weight
- 10%
- What it checks
- Pages with at least one internal link and an average of 3 or more internal links per page
| Category | Weight | What it checks |
|---|---|---|
| On-page | 25% | Title up to 60 characters, meta description up to 160, a single H1 and canonical |
| Content | 25% | Text with 300 words or more (half credit between 150 and 299), H2 subheadings, images with alt text and unique titles across pages |
| Technical | 20% | Pages without errors (responses below 400), without noindex, and load time: full credit up to 800 ms at p75, half up to 1,500 ms |
| GEO | 20% | Readiness for AI answers: structured data (JSON-LD), at least 3 sharing tags, meta description and text with 300 words or more |
| Links | 10% | Pages with at least one internal link and an average of 3 or more internal links per page |
Issue severity
Critical
- Issues
- HTTP error, Noindex
- Why it matters
- The page doesn’t show in search or doesn’t open
Warning
- Issues
- Missing title, Missing meta description, Missing H1, Multiple H1s
- Why it matters
- The page shows, but is poorly described
Info
- Issues
- Title too long (over 60 characters), Meta description too long (over 160), Missing canonical, Thin content (under 150 words)
- Why it matters
- Tweaks that improve results
| Severity | Issues | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Critical | HTTP error, Noindex | The page doesn’t show in search or doesn’t open |
| Warning | Missing title, Missing meta description, Missing H1, Multiple H1s | The page shows, but is poorly described |
| Info | Title too long (over 60 characters), Meta description too long (over 160), Missing canonical, Thin content (under 150 words) | Tweaks that improve results |
Other blocks
- Load time (p75): 75% of pages loaded within this time.
- Keywords: the most frequent terms in the content and on how many pages they appear.
- HTTP status codes: how many pages answered 2xx, 3xx (redirect), 4xx and 5xx.
- Content depth: how many pages fall into each word-count range.
- Structured data: the JSON-LD types found and on how many pages.
- Pages: the list with each page’s URL, Status, Title, Words and Issues.
Step by step: from issue to fix
- 1Step 1
Start with Pages by impact
On the SEO tab, the Pages by impact table crosses Search Console impressions with what the audit found. Critical issues with traffic come first: a
noindexon a page with 100 impressions comes before a long title on a page with 5,000.Illustrative screenKorra/PerformanceAsk RelatorAIPTSEOPages by impactPage Issue found Impressions Clicks CTR Position /running-shoes Noindex 8,420 312 3.7% 6.2 /black-friday HTTP error 5,130 98 1.9% 9.4 /summer-collection Missing meta description 3,870 141 3.6% 7.8 13,550 impressions behind a critical issue · 9 crawled pages search does not know · 14 pages in search the crawl missed- 1Pages sorted by severity, then by impressions.
- 2The cross-check summary: impressions at risk, orphan pages and pages outside the crawl.
- 2Step 2
Use the opportunity map
Where the opportunity is places each page by search position × impressions; size is the number of clicks and red marks a critical issue. A big red bubble is a page with a lot of search and a critical issue: fix it first. Pages without position or impressions stay off the chart, and the footer says how many.
- 3Step 3
Fix it on the site and audit again
Take the list to whoever manages the site. After the fixes, click Audit now for a new round.
- 4Step 4
Compare with the previous audit
On the SEO tab, the comparison picker becomes Audit: current vs. previous. The Pages with issues card shows, for example, "34 of 118" next to how many there were before, so you can see whether they went down.
Orphan pages and pages outside the crawl
- Crawled pages search does not know (orphans): they exist on the site but don’t show in Search Console. They are usually pages without internal links, outside the sitemap or blocked. The View the N orphan pages → link opens the list.
- Pages in search the crawl missed: they get impressions but were outside the 100 audited pages or can’t be reached from the home page and sitemap.
Frequently asked questions
What’s a good score?
There’s no official cutoff. Use the score to track progress between audits, and always prioritize critical issues on pages with traffic, even with a high score.
Why does a page show as "not crawled" in the impact table?
It gets impressions in Search Console but wasn’t part of the audit. It may be outside the sitemap, without links from the home page or beyond the round’s 100 pages.
What is GEO?
It’s how ready the site is to appear in AI assistant answers. The audit looks at signals such as structured data and sharing tags.
Does an audit in progress count in the table?
No. Only completed audits feed the report and the cross-check, so pages not visited yet don’t look healthy.
Read next
- SEOTurn on the site SEO auditRegister the client’s domain, prove it’s yours with a TXT record in DNS and run the first site audit.
- SEOSearch Console in PerformanceGoogle clicks, impressions, CTR, average position and queries on the SEO tab in Performance, crossed with the site audit.
- Data and freshnessWhy Search Console shows up lateGoogle publishes search data 2 to 3 days later. See what that changes on screen and how to build comparisons that make sense.