The health score
The health score turns a whole crawl into one number from 0 to 100, so you can see at a glance how a site is doing and whether it is improving.
This page explains what the number means, how the weighting works, how to raise it fastest, and its limits.
One weighted number
The score is weighted, not a raw count of warnings. Each issue contributes according to how much it actually affects SEO, so a few high-impact problems move the score far more than a long list of minor ones. This is deliberate. Counting every warning equally would make a site with fifty trivial issues look worse than one with three serious ones, which is exactly backwards from how search engines treat them.
What feeds the score
It draws on the same checks you see grouped on the dashboard: indexability, broken links, titles and meta descriptions, headings, image alt text, structured data, internal links, orphan pages, anchor text, and response time. The checks reference explains each.
How the weighting works
Issues fall into rough impact tiers, and the higher tiers pull the score down hardest:
| Tier | Effect on rankings | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Critical | Can remove a page from search entirely | Wrong noindex, Disallow blocking crawl, server errors on key pages |
| High | Directly limits ranking or discovery | Broken links, missing or duplicate titles, non-indexable important pages |
| Medium | Weakens performance and clicks | Thin or missing meta descriptions, heading problems, weak internal linking |
| Low | Polish and refinement | A few images missing alt text, slightly long titles |
Because the tiers are weighted, fixing one critical issue usually moves the score more than fixing dozens of low ones. That is the whole point: the score points you at what matters.
A worked example
Imagine two sites, each with 30 issues. Site A has 28 low-tier issues and 2 critical ones (two key pages set to noindex). Site B has 30 low-tier issues and nothing critical. Site B will score higher, even with more total issues, because Site A has pages that cannot rank at all. Fixing Site A's two noindex tags will lift its score more than clearing all 30 of Site B's minor issues. This is how a weighted score keeps you honest about priorities.
How to raise your score fastest
- Clear every critical issue first: anything blocking indexing or crawling, and server errors.
- Fix high-impact issues: broken links, and missing or duplicate titles.
- Work through medium issues: meta descriptions, headings, internal linking.
- Finish with low polish once the rest is clean.
- Re-crawl after each batch to confirm the score moved and nothing regressed.
Reading a change over time
The most useful thing about the score is watching it move. Fix a batch, crawl again, and it should rise. If it drops, something regressed, so compare the two crawls to find what changed. See Compare crawls with crawl history. A single number is easy to track over weeks and easy to act on.
What a good score is
Treat the score as relative, not a target to game. A well-kept site sits high with only minor issues left. What matters more than an exact number is the direction it moves and whether the critical and high-impact issues are gone. A site at 95 with no critical issues is healthier than one at 98 with a noindex on an important page, so read the severity, not just the total.
A strong signal, not a guarantee
The score reflects what the crawler can check on your pages: technical health and on-page quality. It does not measure everything that affects rankings, such as content depth and relevance, search intent, or off-site signals like the links other sites point at you. Use it as a strong, honest signal of the large, fixable part of SEO you control, not a promise of position.
Frequently asked questions
What is a good SEO health score?
High, with no critical or high-impact issues left. The trend and the severity of what remains matter more than the exact number.
Why did my score drop after a change?
A change introduced or re-exposed issues, for example a noindex shipped by accident or a batch of new broken links. Compare the two crawls to see exactly what moved it.
Does the score match Google's view of my site?
No tool can reproduce Google's ranking system. The score measures the technical and on-page health you can control, which is a large and fixable part of SEO, but not the whole picture.
Can I reach 100?
Often, on a clean site. Do not chase the last point at the expense of real priorities; a high score with the important issues fixed is the goal.
Is a lower score always bad?
Not on its own. A large site will accumulate minor issues. Look at whether the critical and high tiers are clear before worrying about the number.