What the score is made of
Our free audit scores a site in three buckets and weighs them. On-page counts for half: titles, headings, the words on the page, internal links, image text, structured data and the elements that turn a visit into an enquiry. Technical counts for about a third: how the site is built and served, whether Google can crawl it, speed on a phone and HTTPS. Off-page counts for the rest: your business listing, reviews, mentions and links from other sites.
Each bucket gets its own grade. The overall grade is the weighted sum.
What moves in weeks
On-page and technical faults are in your control, so they move fast once someone finds them. Broken links, missing redirects, slow images, missing structured data and indexing problems can all be fixed once they are found.
Example. On one B2B site we fixed, 39 pages were not being indexed by Google. The cause was a single site-address setting that sent conflicting signals in the sitemap, the redirects and the canonical tags. One correction, confirmed live. Read the case study. This is the kind of work in our SEO service.
What only moves with time
Off-page work cannot be rushed honestly. Links from other sites, reviews and mentions come from other people choosing to give them. On that same B2B site the audit graded on-page work A+ and AI-search readiness A+, performance B+, usability D and links F. The page work was strong. The links grade held the overall grade down, with a domain rating of 3 after starting at 0.
That is the usual shape. The parts we control improve first. The parts other people control take months.
Why an instant A+ should make you suspicious
A report that starts with a perfect score either checks too little or is selling you something. Links can be bought, and bought links can be penalised under Google's spam policies. We do not buy links or stuff keywords, which is also the line Google's own SEO starter guide takes. That is a choice that slows the number and protects the site.
Questions to ask about your own score
- Which bucket is lowest, and why?
- What can be fixed this month, and what is only fixed by time?
- Is anything in the report a fix you could skip?
- Who does the work, and how will I see the change?
For the other side of this, read how AI search picks businesses. If the answers are specific, you have a plan. If they are all about the number, you have a sales page.
