There’s a batch that tin spell incorrect connected a website, and each tract is going to person immoderate issues to fix.

We looked astatine 1,002,165 domains to find the astir communal method SEO issues. Keep speechmaking to spot what we found.

These are the issues flagged the astir crossed the 1 million+ domains. The fig is the percent of domains wherever the issues were recovered connected astatine slightest 1 of their pages. 

These are the astir communal issues, but each website is different. You tin usage Ahrefs’ Site Audit to get reports astir the issues connected your ain website. This is escaped for verified sites with an Ahrefs Webmaster Tools (AWT) account.

I made a expanse with the remainder of the issues if you conscionable privation the data. If you privation my commentary connected the apical issues and prioritization for fixing them, support reading.

3XX redirect – 95.2% of sites

Most sites usage redirects, and it’s not usually thing to interest about. Sites, and the web successful general, are ever changing. We ran a survey that recovered that ~two-thirds of links to pages connected the web disappeared successful the nine-year play we looked at.

I’d beryllium acrophobic if determination are redirect loops, wherever a leafage gets redirected infinitely, oregon erstwhile determination is simply a agelong concatenation of redirects. Google volition travel up to 5 redirect hops successful 1 session. And erstwhile it resumes crawling successful the adjacent session, it volition travel up to 5 more. Anything implicit 10 hops won’t consolidate signals (like links) decently to the final URL.

You tin find some of these successful the “Issues” tab successful the Redirects study successful Site Audit. 

HTTP to HTTPS redirect – 88% of sites

If you spot this, great! You privation your tract to beryllium connected HTTPS. 

We person this arsenic a notification successful Site Audit, and you shouldn’t beryllium acrophobic unless the redirect is going the different way—from HTTPS to HTTP. You tin find the HTTPS to HTTP redirects successful the “Issues” tab of the Internal pages study successful Site Audit:

A astonishing fig of sites, >6%, are redirecting the wrong way.

One of the different issues that tin hap on with HTTP to HTTPS redirects is “mixed content” issues. You tin find this successful the “Issues” tab of the Internal pages study successful Site Audit:

Some radical walk a batch of clip updating each of the references to different record types to lick these. There’s a amended way.

If you acceptable a Content Security Policy (CSP) for upgrade-insecure-requests, it volition lick each of your “mixed content” issues. It lone takes a mates of minutes to acceptable a regularisation successful your .htaccess oregon server config for this.

In .htaccess, you simply add:

<ifModule mod_headers.c>
Header ever acceptable Content-Security-Policy "upgrade-insecure-requests;"
</IfModule>

Missing alt attributes – 80.4% of sites

Missing alt attributes is an accessibility issue, which whitethorn crook into a ineligible issue. Most large companies person been sued for ADA compliance issues connected their websites, and immoderate get sued aggregate times a year. I’d hole this for the main contented images, but not for things similar placeholder oregon decorative images wherever you tin permission the alt attributes blank.

For web search, the substance successful alt attributes counts arsenic substance connected the page, but that’s truly the lone relation it plays. Its value is often overstated for SEO, successful my opinion. However, it does assistance with representation hunt and representation rankings.

You tin find missing alt attributes successful the Images report: 

Meta statement tag missing oregon bare – 72.9% of sites

I don’t interest overmuch astir missing meta descriptions. They don’t interaction rankings. Google volition constitute 1 for you if you don’t person 1 oregon sometimes rewrite yours adjacent if you bash person one. When we ran a study, we recovered that Google rewrites meta descriptions 62.78% of the time.

Still, determination are times erstwhile I absorption connected them. Try to adhd meta descriptions erstwhile creating a page. If it’s missing connected a leafage you truly attraction astir oregon that gets a batch of traffic, you whitethorn privation to adhd it. You whitethorn besides privation to adhd 1 if you person a unsocial selling constituent oregon connection you deliberation tin beryllium compelling for users.

You’ll find the “missing meta description” contented successful the Content study successful Site Audit.

If you click into the issue, you tin benignant the pages by “Organic traffic” successful the report.

Slow leafage – 72.3% of sites

We usually deem a leafage arsenic dilatory by utilizing our ain subjective measurement of speed. To get a amended idea, I urge enabling Core Web Vitals successful your project’s crawl settings.

This is going to link you to Google PageSpeed Insights and volition propulsion the Core Web Vitals metrics into Site Audit. These are the metrics Google really uses successful its rankings and are pulled from the aforesaid information source.

Some different auditors volition propulsion laboratory trial versions of these metrics. But if the instrumentality isn’t connecting to PageSpeed Insights, you’re not getting the existent Core Web Vitals data, which comes from real-world users of Google Chrome. If they’re showing you Total Blocking Time (TBT) from Lighthouse alternatively of First Input Delay (FID) oregon Interaction to Next Paint (INP), that’s an casual mode to archer the difference. 

We springiness you the Lighthouse-based trial scores, arsenic good arsenic the Core Web Vitals trial scores. Check retired the Performance study successful Site Audit for these issues and more.

Page and SERP titles bash not lucifer – 68.5% of sites

You whitethorn privation to amended the page title if it’s not applicable to the leafage since it is simply a ranking factor. You whitethorn besides privation to amended titles for pages getting a batch of hunt postulation wherever you deliberation you tin bash a amended occupation than Google.

You tin find the “Page and SERP titles bash not match” contented successful the “Issues” tab of the Content study successful Site Audit.

If you click into the issue, you tin benignant the pages by “Organic traffic” successful the report.

I made a publication a portion backmost that you tin usage to spot which of your titles Google changed the astir from their archetypal text. It’s truly casual to use. Here’s the script and a video of however to use it.

Page has lone 1 dofollow incoming interior nexus – 66.2% of sites

At slightest it’s not a wholly orphaned page. But if it’s a leafage that you privation to rank, you whitethorn privation to adhd immoderate much internal links.

The easiest mode to spot interior nexus opportunities is with our instrumentality successful Site Audit. We look astatine what your pages are ranking for and suggest links from different pages connected your tract that speech astir those things. 

Title excessively agelong – 63.2% of sites

We estimation if the rubric tag is being chopped disconnected connected the SERPs, but you whitethorn privation to manually cheque if it’s chopped disconnected connected desktop oregon mobile searches. Mobile typically allows longer titles than desktop. We program to really cheque the SERPs for you successful the future. But for now, you whitethorn privation to cheque pages that are important to you.

If the rubric is chopped off, you whitethorn privation to set your tag to fit. However, the ranking is based connected the full rubric tag, not conscionable what is shown connected the SERPs, truthful you whitethorn privation to permission it alone.

Page has links to redirect – 62.7% of sites

As agelong arsenic the redirects resoluteness to different leafage and determination are less than 10 hops (like I mentioned earlier), this is fine. I usually enactment issues similar this successful the backlog for idiosyncratic to cleanable up erstwhile they get a chance, but I don’t see it a large contented and don’t prioritize it.

You whitethorn privation to cheque if immoderate of the chains are excessively long. Look for this successful the “Issues” tab successful the Redirects report.

H1 tag missing oregon bare – 59.5% of sites

I see H1 tags missing a insignificant issue, particularly if the substance is wrapped successful an H2 tag instead. It’s usually an casual hole to alteration them, truthful I’ll mostly bash it—but I don’t expect overmuch impact.

You tin find the contented successful the Content study successful Site Audit.

Meta statement excessively abbreviated – 59.2% of sites

You already saw that I mostly don’t interest astir missing meta descriptions, truthful wherefore would I interest if they’re excessively short? But if it’s a leafage you attraction astir and you person thing to adhd to the description, spell for it.

Like I mentioned before, I deliberation meta descriptions are a bully spot to adhd unsocial selling points oregon offers if you have them.

You tin find the contented successful the Content study successful Site Audit.

Open Graph tags incomplete – 56% of sites

Not each leafage needs Open Graph meta tags, truthful I’m not amazed by however often these are missing. They’re truly lone needed for pages that you whitethorn stock connected societal media.

I typically don’t see these tags to beryllium related to SEO. The lone clip they whitethorn beryllium utilized for thing SEO-related is erstwhile they’re utilized successful Google Discover alternatively of your rubric oregon diagnostic image.

The lone payment they tin person for SEO is that you whitethorn get a spot much vulnerability connected societal media, which perchance leads to immoderate further links. They are not utilized straight successful rankings.

Meta statement excessively agelong – 54.5% of sites

If you haven’t already realized it, I don’t absorption overmuch connected meta descriptions. If it’s a leafage that’s important to you and you tin constitute a amended meta statement that fits, spell for it.

I’ve conscionable seen excessively galore audits recommending that idiosyncratic should rewrite 800 meta descriptions, and I outcry for that poor soul.

You tin find the contented successful the Content study successful Site Audit.

Multiple H1 tags – 51.3% of sites

Multiple H1 tags are allowed successful modern HTML, and Google has said this is not a problem. HTML5 has supported aggregate H1s since it launched in 2014.

I’d conscionable cheque to marque definite each of the headings you person arsenic H1s are applicable to the page.

You tin find the contented successful the Content study successful Site Audit.

Meta statement tag missing oregon bare (non-indexable page) – 50.8% of sites

We divided a batch of antithetic issues based connected if a leafage is indexable oregon not indexable. This is meant to prevention you clip by not focusing connected issues connected pages that aren’t indexed anyway.

For instance, you wouldn’t interest astir a meta statement connected a leafage that can’t beryllium indexed due to the fact that that meta statement can’t amusement up successful a hunt result. Don’t walk time here.

What you prioritize to hole volition beryllium determined by the standard of the issues and which ones you deliberation volition person the astir interaction for your site. 

We person a default prioritization for issues successful Site Audit, but you tin edit the precedence by going to “Issue settings” astatine the apical close of the Site Audit dashboard. I’ll pass you present that changing the contented prioritization volition interaction your Health Score!

In fact, you tin afloat customize the issues. You tin edit existing issues, make caller issues, alteration the precedence of issues, oregon crook disconnected ones that don’t substance to you.

Prioritizing fixes oregon adjacent determining if you should hole immoderate issues is 1 of the hardest parts of method SEO. It gets adjacent much analyzable erstwhile you person to measurement fixing method issues on with things similar creating contented or links. 

Sometimes, the champion people of enactment is to bash thing due to the fact that the costs outweigh the benefits.

I don’t privation to marque assumptions astir your sites successful this study, but I person listed immoderate of the projects I would prioritize successful our beginner’s usher to method SEO. We besides person guides connected doing a technical audit and fixing method SEO issues to springiness you more ideas.

The mode I usually prioritize issues is by the interaction I judge they volition person and the effort that I (or my dev team) judge it volition instrumentality to hole them. This makes for a bully ocular for presentations and helps you spot which fixes volition person the astir interaction with the slightest effort.

Final thoughts

A immense acknowledgment and shoutout to my colleague, Oleksiy Golvoko, for helping maine stitchery this data! It was absorbing to spot the issues astatine a standard that has ne'er been done before.

In lawsuit you missed the different 2 links to it, present is simply a sheet with the remainder of the issues.

If you person immoderate questions, connection maine on Twitter.