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Audit

The Audit report: groups of pages with the same title or description, near-duplicates, and each problem with the number of pages, one group opened to show its pages

SEO → Audit checks every published page and lists the pages behind each problem, never a score. "These eleven pages have no description" is a morning's work with a clear finish line; "73 out of 100" tells you nothing to do.

What it reports​

ProblemWhy it matters
Same titlePages with one title compete with each other and look identical in search results.
Same descriptionOne description over several pages describes none of them.
Near-duplicatesPages whose text is 90% or more the same (see below).
No description at allSearch engines pick a snippet of their own.
No description writtenAn automatic one is used: fine as a fallback, but a written one earns more clicks.
Title over 60 characters / description over 160Likely cut off in results.
Heading structureA level skipped, or an H1 in the content.
Focus keyphrase missingThe page's focus keyphrase isn't in its title, description, first paragraph or text.
No focus keyphraseOptional; the checks need one to measure against.
ThinFewer words than the thin-page threshold under Going stale.

Each group opens to the list of pages, each linking to its editor. The audit runs by itself every day, each page is re-checked when you save it, and Check again now runs it on demand. It works in the background, about a minute for a few hundred pages.

Pages generated in bulk​

Making many pages from one template and a list (a page per town, per service, per product) can cover searches nobody could write for by hand. It is also the fastest way to get a whole site discounted, because search engines judge mass-produced thin pages as a whole. Three guardrails help:

  • Near-duplicate detection. The audit compares the text of every page with every other page of the same type and groups the ones that are 90% or more the same, a number "thin" and "old" can't give. Give each page something of its own (local details, prices, photos, reviews), or merge them. Pages under 50 words are too short to compare; they show as thin instead.
  • Keep thin pages out of search results. Under Pages generated in bulk, tick the content types to guard. A page of those types is kept out of search results and out of the sitemap until it has more words than the thin-page threshold. Generate a thousand pages, and only the ones with real content are offered to search engines; each is let in automatically as soon as it grows.
  • How many Google kept. With index coverage connected, the audit shows how many pages of each type Google has indexed, which is the number that says whether the approach is working or being ignored.

Limits​

  • Near-duplicate comparison is pairwise within a type, up to 1,500 pages per type.
  • The checks read what is in the content and the page builder, not text a theme adds around it.