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SEO audit

Around sixty checks on one page, each one saying what was found and why it matters. This is one of three tools here that needs an account, because it fetches a page from a server. The rest of the site runs in your browser and sends nothing anywhere.

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One account for the seo audit, the article writer and the uptime monitor. Nothing in the tool list asks for one.

No password. We send a six digit code, and the same code is a link in the email.

Want a bigger allowance?

There is a limit because every audit is a request to somebody else's server and every article is a model call, and both are paid for out of one person's pocket. That is the entire reason, and it is why the rest of the site has no limits at all.

Ask, and say what you are using it for. There is nothing to pay and nothing to sign up to. The limits are there to keep the bill survivable, not to sell you the next tier.

Write to hello@shimtools.com

Send it from the address you signed in with, so we know whose limit to raise. Asking has never been refused.

What it checks

Indexation
Status code, the redirect chain, robots directives, canonical, robots.txt and the sitemap.
Titles and descriptions
Length in characters against what is actually shown, and whether they say anything.
Headings
One H1, no skipped levels, and headings that describe what is under them.
Content
Word count against what ranks for anything competitive, with thin pages named as thin.
Links
Internal and external counts, anchor text that says nothing, and nofollow.
Images
Missing alt text, and how much of the page weight is images.
Structured data
What is emitted, whether it parses, and whether it matches what is on the page.
Technical
Security headers, mixed content, caching, and render blocking resources.
Speed
Time to first byte and transfer size, measured on the request we made.

Questions

Why does this one need an account when the rest of the site does not?
Because it is one of only three things here that cannot run on your own machine. Auditing a page means fetching a URL from a server, and a browser cannot do that for another site. Everything in the tool list runs entirely in your browser, sends nothing anywhere, and keeps working with your connection off. This is a separate product on a separate page so the difference is visible rather than buried in a policy.
What does the score mean?
It starts at 100 and subtracts 15 for each critical finding, 5 for each warning and 1 for each note. The report shows that arithmetic, so the number is a summary of the list rather than a judgement you cannot check. A score on its own is a horoscope; a score with the deductions beside it is a list of things to do.
How deep does it go?
One page, thoroughly, rather than a whole site shallowly. Around sixty checks across nine groups, and each finding says what was found, not just that something is wrong. It also fetches robots.txt and the sitemap, follows the redirect chain, and checks whether the http version redirects to https.
Can I audit a staging site or something on my own machine?
No, and that is deliberate. Only publicly reachable addresses are fetched. A tool that will fetch any URL you give it can be pointed at a private network, so private and reserved addresses are refused, and the check is repeated on every redirect rather than once at the start.
How long does it take?
A few seconds. The audit runs while you wait rather than joining a queue, so the result is on screen by the time the button finishes. It is still recorded as a job, so if something goes wrong it is retried on its own and you can find it again under Recents.
What if the page will not load for you?
Then you get four lines saying so, rather than a report. A firewall answering 403 serves an error page, and auditing that would produce a score and a list of findings about a page that is not yours. The report says what the server answered, what usually causes it, and nothing else.
What do I get?
A spreadsheet with every finding in the order to work through it: what is wrong, what was found, why it matters, and a column to tick off. It opens in Excel or Sheets. The same report is offered as JSON for anybody wiring it into their own tooling.

Also here: the article writer, the fake API, and what is stored and what is not in the privacy note.