Issues
Over 300 SEO issues, warnings and opportunities
The Screaming Frog SEO Spider identifies over 300 SEO issues, warnings and opportunities that can be seen in the ‘Issues’ tab of the app.
- Issues are an error or issue that should ideally be fixed.
- Warnings are not necessarily an issue, but should be checked – and potentially fixed.
- Opportunities are ‘potential’ areas for optimisation and improvement.
Priorities are based upon potential impact that may require more attention, rather than definitive action – from broadly accepted SEO best practice. They are not hard rules for what should be prioritised in your SEO strategy, or must be ‘fixed’ in your SEO audit as they lack context.
Issues provide direction to users who can make sense of the data and interpret it into appropriate prioritised actions relevant to each unique business, website and objectives. The full list of issues are listed below.
Types of Issues
Issue
Warning
Opportunity
Issue Priorities
High
Medium
Low
Response Codes
HTTP response status codes indicate whether an HTTP request made during a crawl has been successfully completed. Find issues related to URLs that are blocked from being crawled, return a no response, redirect, client or server error.
Security
Website security is important to protect users and reduce risk from common threats. Find issues related to basic security best practices, such as HTTPS, mixed content, and HTTP security headers.
URL
Ensuring a website has logical and relevant URLs is vital for users and search engines in understanding website structure, and the content of a page. Find issues non-optimal formats, or URLs that shouldn't be discoverable.
Page Titles
Relevant and descriptive page titles are essential, as they help both users and search engines understand the purpose of a page. Find issues related to missing, duplicate, long or even multiple page titles.
Meta Description
Meta descriptions can be used in search engine result snippets, so writing a good meta description can be helpful for users and drive more clicks to a website. Find issues related to missing, duplicate, long or even multiple meta descriptions.
H1
Headings help provide structure and organisation to a web page, and can allow users and search engines to better understand the content. The h1 should describe the main title and purpose of the page. Find issues related to missing, duplicate, long or non-sequential h1's.
H2
Headings are titles and subtitles within the copy of a page to guide users and search engines to better understand the content. The h2 heading is often used to describe sections within a document and act as signposts for the user. Find issues related to missing, duplicate, long or non-sequential h2's.
Content
Ensuring your web pages deliver the best on-page content is vital to satisfy users and for SEO. Find issues related to exact and near duplicate content, low content, spelling, grammar and readability.
Images
Imagery is crucial in delivering rich web experiences, whether that's to support branding, selling products or impactful visuals. Find issues related to large images, missing alt text, incorrectly sized images and cumulative layout shift.
Canonicals
Rel="canonical" can be used to help reduce duplicate content, and provide a hint to the search engines about which version of a URL should be indexed in the search results. Find issues related to pages missing canonicals, canonicalised pages, non-indexable canonicals and more.
Pagination
Pagination is a common way to divide and display a subset of results to users for improved page performance or UX. Find issues related to pagination setup, including non-200 response URLs in pagination attributes, non-indexable paginated pages and sequence problems.
Directives
Robots directives using either the robots meta tag or X-Robots-Tag HTTP Header give search engine crawlers instructions about how to crawl and index web pages. Find issues related to noindex, nofollow and none directives.
Hreflang
Hreflang lets search engines know about multiple versions of a page for different languages and regions, to enable them to return the appropriate version to users under search. Find issues related to non-200 hreflang URLs, missing return links and incorrect language or region codes.
JavaScript
Search engines today are typically able to render web pages to crawl and index pages that use JavaScript. However, JavaScript-rich websites that rely on client-side rendering can be more fragile. Find issues related to blocked resources, identifying JS content, links and key elements.
Pages with Blocked Resources
Contains JavaScript Links
Contains JavaScript Content
Page Title Only in Rendered HTML
Page Title Updated by JavaScript
Meta Description Only in Rendered HTML
Meta Description Updated by JavaScript
H1 Only in Rendered HTML
H1 Updated by JavaScript
Canonical Only in Rendered HTML
Pages With JavaScript Errors
Links
Links are used by website users to navigate pages, and by search engines to understand a website and score them. Find link issues related to pages with high crawl depth, without internal outlinks, non-descriptive anchor text and more.
AMP
AMP is an open-source HTML framework that was created to help produce fast-loading pages optimised for mobile. There are specific requirements for AMP and the setup. Find issues related to the SEO setup, as well as AMP specifications using the official AMP validator.
Non-200 Response
Missing Non-AMP Return Link
Missing Canonical to Non-AMP
Non-Indexable Canonical
Missing <html amp> Tag
Missing/Invalid Doctype HTML Tag
Missing Head Tag
Missing Body Tag
Missing Canonical
Missing/Invalid Meta Charset Tag
Missing/Invalid Meta Viewport Tag
Missing/Invalid AMP Script
Missing/Invalid AMP Boilerplate
Contains Disallowed HTML
Other Validation Errors
Structured Data
Structured data provides search engines with explicit clues about the meaning of pages and their components and can enable special search result features and enhancements in Google. Find issues related to Schema.org specifications and Google’s rich result feature requirements.
Sitemaps
XML Sitemaps should be up to date, error free, and include indexable, canonical versions of URLs to help search engines crawl and index the URLs that are important for a website. Find issues related to URLs not in the XML Sitemap, orphan URLs and non-indexable URLs.
PageSpeed
Page speed is a fundamental component of UX and by integrating the PageSpeed Insights API into a crawl, speed metrics, opportunities and diagnostics can be gathered at scale. Find issues related to render-blocking resources, large images, compression and more.
Eliminate Render-Blocking Resources
Properly Size Images
Defer Offscreen Images
Minify CSS
Minify JavaScript
Reduce Unused CSS
Reduce Unused JavaScript
Efficiently Encode Images
Serve Images in Next-Gen Formats
Enable Text Compression
Preconnect to Required Origin
Reduce Server Response Times (TTFB)
Preload Key Requests
Reduce JavaScript Execution Time
Serve Static Assets With An Efficient Cache Policy
Minimize Main-Thread Work
Image Elements Do Not Have Explicit Width & Height
Avoid Large Layout Shifts
Avoid Serving Legacy JavaScript to Modern Browsers
Avoid Multiple Page Redirects
Use Video Format for Animated Images
Avoid Excessive DOM Size
Ensure Text Remains Visible During Webfont Load
Mobile
Websites must provide friendly and rich experience on mobile devices, as well as desktop. Test web pages using Lighthouse to identify mobile usability issues related to viewport, tap targets, content sizing and more.
Accessibility
Improve site accessibility to make them more inclusive and user friendly for people with disabilities. Automate finding accessibility issues using the inbuilt open-source AXE accessibility engine that powers Lighthouse.
Best Practice – Accesskey Attribute Value Must Be Unique
Best Practice – Elements Must Not Have Tabindex Greater Than Zero
Best Practice – ARIA Dialog & Alertdialog Require Accessible Name
Best Practice – ARIA Treeitem Nodes Require Accessible Name
Best Practice – Role=text Should Have No Focusable Descendants
Best Practice – Form Elements Should Have Visible Label
Best Practice – Frames Should Be Tested With axe-core
Best Practice – Scope Attribute Should Be Used Correctly On Tables
WCAG 2.0 A – Scrollable Region Requires Keyboard Access
WCAG 2.0 A – Required ARIA Attributes Must Be Provided
WCAG 2.0 A – ARIA Attribute Must Be Used As Specified For Role
WCAG 2.0 A – ARIA Attributes Require Valid Values
WCAG 2.0 A – ARIA Attributes Require Valid Names
WCAG 2.0 A – ARIA Commands Require Accessible Name
WCAG 2.0 A – ARIA Input Fields Require Accessible Name
WCAG 2.0 A – ARIA Meter Nodes Require Accessible Name
WCAG 2.0 A – ARIA Progressbar Nodes Require Accessible Name
WCAG 2.0 A – ARIA Roles Must Be Contained By Required Parent
WCAG 2.0 A – ARIA Roles Require Valid Values
WCAG 2.0 A – ARIA Toggle Fields Require Accessible Name
WCAG 2.0 A – ARIA Tooltip Nodes Require Accessible Name
WCAG 2.0 A – Certain ARIA Roles Must Contain Specific Children
WCAG 2.0 A – Aria-braille Require Non-braille Equivalent
WCAG 2.0 A – Aria-hidden Elements Contains Focusable Elements
WCAG 2.0 A – Aria-hidden=true Must Not Be Used In <body>
WCAG 2.0 A – Elements Must Only Use Permitted ARIA Attributes
WCAG 2.0 A – Elements Must Use Allowed ARIA Attributes
WCAG 2.0 A – IDs Used In ARIA & Labels Must Be Unique
WCAG 2.0 A – Page Requires Means To Bypass Repeated Blocks
WCAG 2.0 A – Form <input> Elements Require Labels
WCAG 2.0 A – Frames Require Title Attribute
WCAG 2.0 A – Frames Require Unique Title Attribute
WCAG 2.0 A – Frames With Focusable Content Must Not Use tabindex=-1
WCAG 2.0 A – Page Must Contain <title>
WCAG 2.0 A – HTML Element Lang Attribute Value Must Be Valid
WCAG 2.0 A – HTML Element Requires Lang Attribute
WCAG 2.0 A – Image Button Requires Alternate Text
WCAG 2.0 A – Images Require Alternate Text
WCAG 2.0 A – <object> Elements Require Alternate Text
WCAG 2.0 A – Active <area> Elements Require Alternate Text
WCAG 2.0 A – Elements Marked role=img Require Alternate Text
WCAG 2.0 A – SVG Images & Graphics Require Accessible Text
WCAG 2.0 A – <video> Elements Require <track> For Captions
WCAG 2.0 A – <video> or <audio> Elements Must Not Auto-play
WCAG 2.0 A – Buttons Require Discernible Text
WCAG 2.0 A – Input Buttons Require Discernible Text
WCAG 2.0 A – Links Require Discernible Text
WCAG 2.0 A – Links Must Be Distinguishable
WCAG 2.0 A – Select Element Requires Accessible Name
WCAG 2.0 A – Summary Elements Require Discernible Text
WCAG 2.0 A – Deprecated <marquee> Element Must Not Be Used
WCAG 2.0 A – Interactive Controls Must Not Be Nested
WCAG 2.0 A – List Items Must Be Contained In List Elements
WCAG 2.0 A – Lists Must Only Contain <li> Content Elements
WCAG 2.0 A – <dt> & <dd> Elements Must Be Contained by <dl>
WCAG 2.0 A – <dl> Must Only Have Ordered <dt> & <dd> Groups
WCAG 2.0 A – <blink> Elements Deprecated & Must Not Be Used
WCAG 2.0 A – <th> Element Requires Associated Data Cells
WCAG 2.0 A – Table Header Attr Must Refer To Cell In Same Table
WCAG 2.0 AA – Meta Viewport Zoom & Scaling Disabled
WCAG 2.0 AA – Lang Attribute Requires Valid Value
WCAG 2.0 AA – Text Requires Higher Color Contrast to Background
WCAG 2.0 AAA – Text Requires Higher Color Contrast Ratio
WCAG 2.1 AA – Autocomplete Attribute Must Be Used Correctly
WCAG 2.1 AA – Inline Text Spacing Must Be Adjustable
WCAG 2.2 AA – Touch Targets Require Sufficient Size & Spacing
Best Practice – Skip-link Target Should Exist & Be Focusable
Best Practice – All Page Content Must Be Contained By Landmarks
Best Practice – Page Requires One Main Landmark
Best Practice – Page Must Not Have More Than One Banner Landmark
Best Practice – Banner Landmark Must Not Be In Another Landmark
Best Practice – Page Must Not Have Multiple Contentinfo Landmarks
Best Practice – Page Requires At Most One Main Landmark
Best Practice – Complementary Landmarks & Asides Must Be Top Level
Best Practice – Contentinfo Landmark Must Be Top Level Landmark
Best Practice – Main Landmark Must Not Be In Another Landmark
Best Practice – Landmarks Require Unique Role Or Accessible Name
Best Practice – Page Must Contain <h1>
Best Practice – Heading Levels Should Only Increase By One
WCAG 2.0 A – Form Field Must Not Have Multiple Label Elements
WCAG 2.0 A – HTML Lang & XML Lang Value Should Match
Best Practice – Ensure Elements Marked Presentational Are Ignored
Best Practice – ARIA Role Should Be Appropriate For Element
Best Practice – Headings Should Not Be Empty
Best Practice – Meta Viewport Should Allow Zoom & Scale Up to 500%
Best Practice – Alt Text Should Not Be Repeated As Text
Best Practice – Table Headers Require Discernible Text
Best Practice – Table With Identical Summary & Caption Text
WCAG 2.0 A – Deprecated ARIA Roles Must Not Be Used
WCAG 2.0 A – Server-Side Image Maps Must Not Be Used
WCAG 2.0 AAA – Delayed Meta Refresh Must Not Be Used
WCAG 2.0 AAA – Links With Same Accessible Name
Analytics
The Google Analytics API can pull in data directly into the crawl for additional insight in technical and content audits. Find issues related to orphan URLs only discovered in Google Analytics, non-indexable URLs with GA data and more.
Search Console
The Google Search Console API can collect click data directly into the crawl for additional insight and query the URL Inspection API to gather indexing data in bulk. Find issues related to orphan URLs, URLs without search analytics data, URLs not indexed and more.
Validation
Valid HTML helps crawlers parse and understand web pages accurately and errors could impact crawlers when crawling and indexing. Find issues that can impact search bots from being able to parse and understand a page reliably.
