Website checker questions, answered

An automated website checker runs repeatable tests against a public URL. Depending on the tool, it may inspect response codes, page titles, headings, canonical tags, robots directives, structured data, links, mobile layout, loading performance and basic trust signals.

Our Check My Site tool is a guided 15-question self-assessment, rather than a URL crawler. For an automated checker, the useful output is evidence you can verify: the exact URL, failed test and next action. A single overall score is a summary, not a diagnosis, because a minor metadata warning and a blocked enquiry page should never carry the same business priority.

Yes. You can inspect public pages without giving a tool access to your hosting or passwords. Start with our free website self-assessment, which creates a checklist score from your answers. It does not scan the URL. Then verify performance with Google PageSpeed Insights and indexing with Google Search Console if you control the site.

Free checks are well suited to triage. They do not replace analytics, Search Console history, a full-site crawl or human judgement about whether the page actually satisfies the intended visitor.

A public URL is already available to browsers and search crawlers, so checking that address should not reveal private account data. Use a reputable tool, read its privacy terms and never paste a password, API key, unpublished preview link or customer information into a public checker.

A checker can only assess what it requests. A clean page-level result does not prove the whole website, hosting account or business is secure. Security testing is a separate discipline and should be authorised.

Individual factual tests can be accurate at the moment they run: a page returned 404, a title was missing or a robots tag said noindex. Composite scores are tool-specific. Two tools can test different things, use different weights and produce different numbers for the same page.

Read the evidence beneath the score. Re-test important failures in the page source or browser, and judge them against the page's purpose. An ecommerce checkout, local service page and blog article need different priorities.

An SEO score usually means the percentage or weighted total of the tool's own checks that passed. It is not a score supplied by Google and it does not predict a ranking position. A page can score 100 and have no demand, authority or useful answer; another can rank while carrying minor tool warnings.

Use the score to find regressions and organise work, not as the goal. Search performance should be judged with impressions, clicks, qualified visits and enquiries.

Check that the important URL returns a successful status, is not blocked in robots.txt, has no noindex directive, uses a sensible canonical and is linked from a crawlable page. Put preferred indexable URLs in an XML sitemap.

Then use Search Console URL Inspection for Google's current view. Crawling and indexing are different: allowing a crawl does not guarantee indexing, and submitting a sitemap is a discovery signal rather than a ranking guarantee.

Confirm the URL uses HTTPS, the browser reports a valid certificate, HTTP redirects consistently to HTTPS and the page does not load insecure mixed content. Those checks cover encrypted transport and basic configuration.

They do not prove that the application has no vulnerabilities, malware or compromised accounts. Keep the platform and dependencies updated, use multi-factor authentication, restrict privileges and arrange authorised security testing when the risk warrants it.

Lab scores vary with the test location, simulated device, network, server response, cache state and third-party scripts. A few points of movement is normal. Compare like with like and look at the underlying loading, responsiveness and layout-shift metrics.

Google's Core Web Vitals assessment uses real-user field data where enough data exists. Lab tests help diagnose a page today; field data shows what eligible visitors experienced over time. Both views are useful and they answer different questions.

Do not reduce performance to one colour. For Core Web Vitals, Google recommends that the 75th percentile of page visits achieve LCP within 2.5 seconds, INP below 200 milliseconds and CLS below 0.1. PageSpeed's 0–100 performance score is a lab summary and can change independently of field status.

Prioritise severe real-user problems and the pages that generate business. A fast empty page is not better than a useful page, but unnecessary scripts, oversized images and layout movement should be removed.

Use a real phone as well as a narrow browser viewport. Confirm text is readable, controls are comfortably tappable, navigation works with keyboard and touch, forms use appropriate input types, and important actions remain visible without sideways scrolling.

Test several templates, not only the homepage. Product, article, service, contact and error pages can use different code. Search Console and real-user performance data can reveal issues that a single visual check misses.

Open /robots.txt and the sitemap URL it declares. The sitemap should contain canonical, indexable URLs on the same preferred host. On each important page, inspect the robots meta tag and canonical link in source.

These signals should agree. A URL should not be submitted in the sitemap while marked noindex, and a canonical should not point to a redirect or irrelevant page. Google treats canonical hints collectively, so consistent internal links also matter.

Open the site in a consent state that permits analytics, trigger a page view and enquiry test, then confirm the events arrive in the platform's real-time or debug view. Check that internal staff traffic, duplicate tags and cross-domain journeys are handled deliberately.

Finally reconcile website submissions, call records and analytics. Analytics can be blocked or modelled, so it should support operational lead records rather than replace them.

Fix broken revenue and access paths first: forms that do not deliver, important pages returning errors, accidental noindex directives, unsafe redirects and mobile actions that cannot be completed. Then align the right page with the right search intent before polishing low-impact metadata.

Rank tasks by likely business impact, confidence and effort. Record the baseline and change date so you can separate a successfully implemented fix from an improvement that still needs time and demand to show an outcome.

No. Some warnings are contextual, duplicated or inconsequential. A short meta description may be entirely adequate; an intentionally noindexed thank-you page is correct. Blindly clearing warnings can introduce worse problems.

Verify why the rule exists, whether the page should be indexed and what user outcome is affected. Fix patterns in templates when many pages share a genuine fault, then re-run the check on a representative sample.

Yes. Submit the form, call the tracked number, test the thank-you state, confirm consent and analytics, and review the landing page on mobile. State the service, location, proof, expected next step and any important qualification clearly.

Paid traffic exposes a broken journey faster and more expensively than organic traffic. A pre-launch check will not guarantee profitable ads, but it prevents avoidable waste and gives you a usable conversion baseline.

Monitor uptime and critical enquiry paths continuously. Run focused checks after releases, content migrations, domain changes and third-party script updates. For a stable small site, a broader monthly or quarterly review can catch drift without generating checklist noise.

Frequency should match the rate and risk of change. A frequently updated shop needs more automation than a five-page brochure site, but both should test their contact path after every relevant deployment.

Use a human review when the checker passes but traffic or enquiries still disappoint, when several fixes conflict, or when a migration, penalty concern or large investment raises the cost of a wrong decision. Human analysis is also needed to judge search intent, evidence, positioning and trust.

Bring the checker output, Search Console data, analytics and real lead outcomes. The review should explain what not to do as clearly as what to change.