What the 17 checks cover
Each check maps to something Google has documented as a ranking or indexing requirement, or that we have measured as a citation signal in AI answers. Critical checks are weighted three times, on-page checks twice, nice-to-haves once.
| Check | Why it matters | Weight |
|---|---|---|
| HTTPS, page responds, indexable, mobile viewport | If any of these fail, nothing else on the page counts. Google will not rank a page it cannot fetch, is told not to index, or that breaks on phones. | Critical |
| Title tag, meta description, one H1 | The title is the strongest on-page relevance signal and your headline in results; the description is your ad copy; one H1 states the topic. | On-page |
| Answer-first opening, section headings | AI Overviews, featured snippets and answer engines quote the first clear statement on a page, and they lift self-contained sections. Question-phrased H2s match People Also Ask. | On-page |
| Enough content, image alt text, canonical URL | Thin pages rarely rank; alt text is accessibility and image search; a canonical stops duplicate URLs splitting your rankings. | On-page |
| Structured data, author and dates | JSON-LD tells Google and AI engines which entity stands behind the page. Named authors and truthful dates became decisive in the December 2025 and May 2026 core updates. | On-page |
| Server response, Open Graph tags, internal links | Slow servers drag Core Web Vitals; OG tags make shared links readable on WhatsApp and LinkedIn; internal links pass authority and help crawling. | Nice-to-have |
How to read the score
- 80–100 — the page is technically sound. If it still does not rank, the problem is content depth, authority or competition, not the page itself.
- 55–79 — workable, with specific leaks. Fix the critical and on-page failures first; most take under an hour each.
- Below 55 — the page is losing traffic it should have. Treat the failures as a punch list for your developer or content team.
Scores are per page. A site is only as strong as its money pages, so check the pages that are supposed to earn: the home page, your main service or product pages, and the articles you expect to bring search traffic.
What a one-page check cannot tell you
Plenty. It does not see how pages link to each other, which keywords two pages are fighting over, how real users experience load times, who links to you, or what ChatGPT says when someone asks for a recommendation in your category. Those need a crawl, field data, a link index and a prompt panel — which is what the 60-point SEO audit and the GEO audit are for. If you want to know what you would get, read the sample report first.
Privacy
The checker fetches the page you enter from our server, runs the checks in memory, returns the result and keeps nothing. We do not log the URLs you test, and there is no account. It will not check pages on private networks.
Questions people ask
Is this SEO checker really free?
Yes. There is no sign-up, no email gate and no limit on how many pages you check. We store nothing about the pages you test.
What does the SEO score mean?
The score weights 17 checks by how much they affect ranking: critical items like HTTPS, indexability and mobile viewport count triple, on-page items double, and nice-to-haves once. 80 and above is healthy; under 55 means the page is losing traffic it should have.
Why does my page score differently from other SEO tools?
Most free checkers grade only classic on-page items. seoclock also checks answer-first structure, named authorship and dates, and structured data, because those decide whether AI Overviews and answer engines cite a page after the 2025–26 Google updates.
Does it check Core Web Vitals or backlinks?
No. It measures server response time, but real Core Web Vitals need field data from Chrome users and backlinks need a link index. Both are part of the paid audit.