What is graded
The free SEO audit, the reports in Reports → SEO audit reports, the website-check and white-label audit widgets, the paid reports and the audits of prospects all use the same grade. It reads one page (the address entered, usually the home page) with its headers, robots.txt, the sitemap, a sample of up to 10 of its links, /llms.txt and Google's PageSpeed test. That is why the free audit calls it the Home page grade. Once the free audit of up to 100 pages has finished, a Site-wide grade is shown beside it: the home page grade less points for the share of pages with a serious issue. The home page grade itself never changes afterwards.
Points by how serious a problem is
The grade starts at 100. Every check is one of:
- Critical (the page answers normally, may be listed by Google, is not blocked by robots.txt, uses HTTPS, is set up for phones): a fail costs 25 points, a warning 10.
- Serious (title, amount of text, canonical, broken links, speed, the http:// copy, insecure files and others): a fail costs 6, a warning 3.
- Medium (description, H1, alt text, sitemap, structured data and others): a fail costs 3, a warning 1.5.
- Minor (security headers, favicon, Open Graph tags and others): a fail costs 1, a warning 0.5.
- Notices (analytics, map link, social profiles, the X card, llms.txt and others): shown with their advice, but they never cost points, because they are not ranking factors.
A problem two checks find (noindex also stops Google quoting the page) is counted once.
Caps: a critical problem limits the grade
Some problems make a page invisible or unusable whatever else passes, so they cap the grade:
- F at best: the page answers with an error, asks Google not to list it (noindex), is blocked by robots.txt, or has almost no text.
- D at best: no HTTPS, not set up for phones, a canonical tag that names another address, or text that only appears after scripts run.
- D+: 30% or more of the links we followed are broken. B-: any of them is.
- C-: a thin page (under 150 words) or no title.
- C+: Google's phone speed test is in its "poor" band, or the server takes more than 1.8 seconds to answer. C: insecure files on a secure page.
- B: the insecure http:// copy of the page is still served.
"Not checked" is never a pass
When Google's speed test does not answer, the grade says Provisional: speed not checked and cannot be higher than B. Run the audit again later to measure it. When Google has figures from real Chrome visitors for the page, the main content time, the layout shift and the response to taps use them instead of the lab test, and the report says "real visitors, Google".
Why this grade
Under the grade, Why this grade lists the caps that applied (one sentence each), the largest deductions with their points, and what could not be checked. The How we graded it panel shows the same, with the letter scale.
Links from other sites
Authority (links from other sites) is shown beside the grade, never inside it: a page cannot fix it, and averaging it in either hides it or punishes a well-built page. In the app, the panel shows the project's stored backlink figures, with spammy or auto-generated linking sites counted apart, never as strength. The free audit does not look links up for visitors. The SEOmise score still counts authority in its own Authority category.
Page addresses and switch links
Three checks in the Links section look at addresses one by one, with the same rules as Indexing and URL health (its settings for the parameters, the slug checks and the final slash). They read only the page, its links and the sitemap, so they work the same on every platform.
- Tidy page addresses: the page's own address and the addresses of the site's pages it links to, checked for underscores, capital letters, a page ending such as .php or .html and double slashes. Each one is listed with the suggested tidy address (lower case, hyphens, no ending, the final slash most of the site uses). A minor check: a warning from 1 address, a fail from 10.
- Menu links with "back to" or session parameters: links in the menu, header or footer that only add where the visitor came from (?back=, ?from=, ?ref= and similar) or a session id. Each is listed with the page it is on and the plain address to link to instead. A medium check: a warning from 1 link, a fail from 3. Not measured when the page has no menu, header or footer the audit can recognise.
- Links that only redirect back: the page's links with a query string are opened once each (up to 10, those with ?back=, ?from= or a session first; links robots.txt keeps out are not opened). A link whose address redirects straight back to the page, such as a region or currency switcher, is listed in its group with the robots.txt rule that keeps crawlers out. The rule is never for the whole site, and is for a whole folder (Disallow: /region/) only when the sitemap the audit read shows no page in that folder; otherwise each address gets its own rule (Disallow: /region/uk?back=). A medium check: a warning from 1 link, a fail from 3.
Each link counts once: a link that redirects back is not also counted as a menu link, and the addresses these checks list are left out of Readable link addresses and Links to parameter copies of the page. Each check says why it matters and how to fix it. In the app, Fix it in Indexing and URL health opens the tool's finding for your project's site when your plan includes it; otherwise the report shows how to add it, or Beta with Ask for early access while it is not switched on yet.
E-mail protection
The hosting card says plainly whether e-mail in the domain's name is protected (DMARC, SPF, DKIM). A DMARC policy of p=none only reports; it does not stop anyone sending e-mail in your name. This is a notice and is never part of the grade.
The letters
A+ from 97, A from 93, A- from 90, B+ from 87, B from 83, B- from 80, C+ from 77, C from 73, C- from 70, D+ from 67, D from 63, D- from 60, F below 60. The website health score and the SEOmise score use the same letters.
Older reports
Reports graded before 25 October 2026 keep their grade and say Graded with the earlier rules (version 3). They are never graded again by themselves; a new check grades the page with today's rules, and a re-run does not show a points difference between the two versions.
Every number above (the points, the caps, the word counts, the letter scale) is a setting our team can change; the report always shows the values it used.
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