Free Website Check: Score Your Site in a Minute

What we check, and why it matters

Each check has a weight, shown in brackets. Bigger weights are the things that cost a small business the most visitors when they go wrong.

Speed (Google PageSpeed, mobile)

• Mobile performance score (15). Most visitors to a small business site are on a phone. A slow page loses them before it loads.
• Largest Contentful Paint (2.5 s or less) (6). How long until the main content appears. Over 2.5 seconds feels slow.
• Cumulative Layout Shift (0.1 or less) (4). Whether the page jumps around while loading, which leads to mis-taps.
• Interaction to Next Paint (200 ms or less) (4). How quickly the page responds when someone taps. Needs real-visitor data from Google.

Speed (measured from the page)

• Page arrives within 3 seconds (5). How long our server waited for the full page. A page that takes longer than this shows visitors a blank screen first.
• Page code under 500 KB (3). Everything in the page code downloads before any image does, which is slow on mobile data.
• Compressed (gzip or Brotli) (4). Compression shrinks the page before it is sent, and it is usually a single server setting.
• Caching instructions set (2). Without them, returning visitors download the whole page again instead of loading it from their phone.
• Fewer than 3 blocking scripts in the head (4). Each of these must download and run before anything appears on screen.
• Long pages lazy-load their images (2). Images far down the page should wait until the visitor scrolls, not compete with the first screen.

Mobile

• Mobile viewport set (8). Without it, phones show a shrunken desktop page that people have to pinch to read.
• Visitors can zoom in (3). Blocking pinch-to-zoom stops anyone who needs larger text from reading the page.
• No fixed desktop-width layout (5). Widths of 900 pixels or more are wider than any phone, so visitors have to scroll sideways to read.
• No Flash or Java content (2). Browsers removed Flash and Java years ago, so anything built with them shows as an empty space.

Trust and security

• Served over HTTPS (10). Browsers mark plain HTTP pages as "Not secure", which puts visitors off.
• http:// redirects to https:// (5). Someone who types your address without https should still land on the secure page.
• No insecure (http://) files on the page (6). A secure page that loads http:// files can lose the padlock, and browsers may block those files outright.
• HSTS header set (2). Tells browsers to always use the secure version, so a visitor on public Wi-Fi is not pushed to an insecure copy.
• Privacy policy linked (4). A site with a contact form collects personal details, and visitors look for how they will be used.

Search basics

• Page title present, 65 characters or fewer (8). The title is the blue link in Google results. Too long and it gets cut off.
• Meta description present, 160 characters or fewer (6). The two lines under your link in Google. Without one, Google picks any text from the page.
• Exactly one main heading (H1) (6). One clear main heading tells visitors and search engines what the page is about.
• Page language declared (3). Helps screen readers pronounce the page and search engines match the right audience.
• Canonical link present (4). Tells search engines which address is the real one when the same page has several.
• Not blocked from search (no noindex) (8). A noindex tag tells Google to leave the page out of search results entirely.
• Structured data (JSON-LD) present (5). Machine-readable facts that search engines can read without guessing.
• Business details Google can read (LocalBusiness) (5). LocalBusiness data gives Google your address, phone and opening hours to show in search and Maps.
• Link preview tags (Open Graph) (3). They supply the image and headline when someone shares your link on WhatsApp, Facebook or LinkedIn.
• Images have alt text (90% or more) (5). Alt text describes images to screen readers and to search engines.

Getting in touch

• Phone number on the page (5). Calling is how many local customers get in touch, and they will not hunt for the number.
• Tap-to-call phone link (6). On a phone, a number people can tap is the fastest way to reach you.
• WhatsApp link (6). Many customers would rather send a message than call.
• Email address on the page (3). For customers who would rather write than call, or who get in touch out of hours.
• Contact or enquiry form (5). Catches enquiries outside working hours, from people who will not call.
• Google Maps or Business Profile link (5). Visitors check how far away you are before they decide to come.
• Opening hours published (4). "Are they open now?" is one of the commonest reasons to visit a local business site.
• A call, book or enquire button near the top (4). Visitors decide quickly. The first screen should show an obvious way to get in touch.
• A way to book (clinics, restaurants, salons) (5). For businesses that run on appointments or tables, visitors expect to book from the site: a Book on WhatsApp button or an online booking system.
• Links to social profiles (2). Customers often check a business's social profiles to see that it is real and still active.

Freshness

• Copyright year is current (4). An old year in the footer makes visitors wonder whether the business is still trading.
• Favicon present (2). The small icon in the browser tab and in bookmarks that makes a site look finished.

How the score works

The score is the weighted share of checks that passed, out of the checks that actually ran. A check that could not run — for example, when Google has no real-visitor data for your page yet — is marked not checked and left out of the score, rather than counted against you.

Speed figures come from Google PageSpeed Insights on mobile. Where Google has data from real Chrome visitors we use it; otherwise the figure comes from Google’s test run and is labelled lab.

What we don’t check

• Other pages. Only the address you enter, not the whole site.
• Your words and design. Whether the copy persuades, or the design suits your brand.
• Rankings and backlinks. We do not measure where you rank, and no score here promises a ranking.
• A full security audit. HTTPS only, not your server, plugins or passwords.
• Full accessibility. Image alt text and the page language only.

Privacy

We fetch the public page you enter and run Google PageSpeed on it. We keep the address, the result and the time for 30 days so you can reopen the result link, then delete them. Your IP address is stored only as a scrambled hash, for rate limits. Your email is used only if you ask us to send the report, and is deleted with the result. Result pages are never shown to search engines.