Interpreting results

Learn how to analyze audit results, understand scoring, and prioritize fixes effectively.

A complete audit provides an overall health score, category-specific scores, issue listings by severity, and actionable recommendations.

Understanding health scores

The overall health score ranges from 0 to 100 and reflects your website’s overall health across all audit categories.

Score grades

A

95-100Excellent

B

85-94Good

C

70-84Fair

D

50-69Poor

F

0-49Critical

What the scores mean

Grade A (95-100)
Grade B (85-94)
Grade C (70-84)
Grade D (50-69)
Grade F (0-49)

ExcellentYour website follows best practices across nearly all areas. Minor improvements may still be possible.

Characteristics

Few or no critical issues
Most rules passing
Well-optimized for search engines
Good user experience

Action

Maintain current standards
Address any remaining notices
Monitor regularly to catch regressions

Severity levels

Every issue in the audit is assigned a severity level that indicates its importance:

Error

Critical issues that must be fixedExamples:

Missing title tags
Broken internal links
Security vulnerabilities
Accessibility violations

Impact: High

Warning

Important issues that should be addressedExamples:

Short meta descriptions
Missing alt text
Slow page load times
Redirect chains

Impact: Medium

Notice

Suggestions for improvementExamples:

Optimal image formats
Additional schema markup
Enhanced content structure
Best practice recommendations

Impact: Low

Severity prioritization

Fix all errors first

Errors have the highest impact on your site’s health, SEO, and user experience.

Do not ignore errors. They can prevent search engines from properly crawling and indexing your site.

Address warnings next

Warnings indicate important issues that, while not critical, significantly affect your site’s performance.

Implement notices for polish

Notices are opportunities to go beyond the baseline and achieve excellence.

Issue ranks

In addition to severity, each rule has a rank from 1 to 10 indicating its impact on overall site health:

High rank (8-10)

Major impact on SEO
Critical for user experience
Security concerns
Core functionality

Examples:

Missing title tags (rank 10)
Broken internal links (rank 9)
No HTTPS (rank 10)

Low rank (1-3)

Minor optimizations
Nice-to-have improvements
Minimal impact
Edge cases

Examples:

Image format optimization (rank 3)
Minor content improvements (rank 2)
Optional schema additions (rank 2)

Focus on high-rank errors first - these provide the biggest improvement to your overall score.

Category scores and grades

In addition to the overall score, each of the 21 audit categories receives its own score and grade:

Example category breakdown

Category	Score	Grade
Core SEO	92	A
Technical SEO	88	B
Performance	76	C
Security	100	A
Accessibility	68	D

Category	Score	Grade
Content	84	B
Links	55	D
Images	72	C
Mobile	95	A
Social Media	90	A

Interpreting category scores

Identify weak areas

Categories with low scores reveal where to focus your efforts.In the example above:

Accessibility (68) needs significant improvement
Links (55) requires urgent attention (broken links likely)
Performance (76) could be optimized

Celebrate strengths

High-scoring categories show where your site excels:

Security (100) - properly configured HTTPS and headers
Mobile (95) - excellent responsive design
Core SEO (92) - strong fundamental SEO implementation

Balance improvements

Don’t over-optimize high-scoring categories while ignoring low scores.Better approach:

Bring all categories to 85+ (Grade B)
Then optimize further to reach 95+ (Grade A)

Prioritizing fixes

Use this framework to prioritize which issues to fix first:

Security first

Address all security-related errors immediately:

Missing HTTPS
Exposed credentials or API keys
Missing security headers
Mixed content

Security issues can expose your site to attacks and harm users. Fix these before anything else.

High-rank errors

Fix errors with rank 8-10 that heavily impact SEO and functionality:

Missing or duplicate title tags
Broken internal links
Missing H1 tags
Inaccessible pages (robots.txt blocks)

Medium-rank errors

Address errors with rank 5-7:

Missing meta descriptions
Missing alt text on images
Poor heading hierarchy
Slow performance

All warnings

Work through warnings by rank:

High-rank warnings (8-10) first
Medium-rank warnings (5-7) next
Low-rank warnings (1-4) last

Polish with notices

Implement notices for final optimization:

Advanced schema markup
Image format upgrades (WebP, AVIF)
Additional structured data
Content enhancements

Prioritization matrix

Decision framework

Severity	Rank 8-10	Rank 5-7	Rank 1-4
Error	🔴 Fix immediately	🟠 Fix today	🟡 Fix this week
Warning	🟠 Fix today	🟡 Fix this week	🟢 Fix when possible
Notice	🟡 Fix this week	🟢 Fix when possible	🔵 Nice to have

Common issue patterns

Recognize these patterns in your audit results:

Missing metadata across many pages

Pattern:

20+ pages missing meta descriptions
Duplicate or generic title tags

Likely cause:

Missing metadata in content management system
Template issues

Solution:

Add metadata to CMS/frontmatter
Update page templates to generate metadata
Use dynamic metadata generation

Use subagents to fix metadata across multiple files in parallel.

Widespread accessibility issues

Pattern:

50+ images missing alt text
Poor heading hierarchy on most pages
Color contrast failures

Likely cause:

Lack of accessibility awareness during development
Automated image insertion without alt text

Solution:

Add alt text to all images (can parallelize)
Fix heading structure (H1 → H2 → H3)
Update color schemes for better contrast

Performance bottlenecks

Pattern:

Slow page load times across the site
Large unoptimized images
Missing caching headers

Likely cause:

No image optimization pipeline
Server configuration issues

Solution:

Implement image optimization (compression, modern formats)
Configure caching headers
Enable CDN
Minimize and bundle JavaScript/CSS

Broken links

Pattern:

Multiple 404 errors for internal links
Broken external links

Likely cause:

Deleted or moved pages without redirects
Outdated external links

Solution:

Set up 301 redirects for moved pages
Update or remove broken external links
Implement link checking in CI/CD

Inconsistent SEO implementation

Pattern:

Some pages perfect, others missing basics
Inconsistent structure across sections

Likely cause:

Multiple developers with different standards
Mixed templates or frameworks

Solution:

Standardize templates
Create SEO checklist for new pages
Use shared components for metadata

Score targets

Set realistic improvement goals based on your starting score:

Score improvement targets

Starting Score	Target Score	Expected Work	Timeframe
< 50 (Grade F)	75+ (Grade C)	Major overhaul	2-4 weeks
50-70 (Grade D)	85+ (Grade B)	Significant fixes	1-2 weeks
70-85 (Grade C)	90+ (Grade A)	Polish and optimize	3-7 days
> 85 (Grade B+)	95+ (Grade A)	Fine-tuning	1-3 days

A site is only considered COMPLETE and FIXED when scores are above 95 (Grade A) with coverage set to FULL (--coverage full).

Realistic expectations

Small site (< 50 pages)
Medium site (50-200 pages)
Large site (200+ pages)

Surface audit: 1-2 days to reach 90+
Full audit: 2-3 days to reach 95+

Typical issues:

Metadata gaps
Image alt text
Heading hierarchy

Iterative improvement process

Don’t try to fix everything in one pass. Follow this iterative approach:

Initial audit

Run a surface audit to get the baseline:

squirrel audit https://example.com --coverage surface --format llm

Review the overall score and identify the top 5 issues.

Fix first batch

Address security issues and high-rank errors:

Fix 10-20 issues
Focus on systematic fixes (e.g., all missing meta descriptions)
Use subagents for parallelizable content fixes

Re-audit

Run another audit to measure improvement:

squirrel audit https://example.com --refresh --format llm

Compare scores before and after.

Fix second batch

Address remaining errors and high-priority warnings:

Continue systematic fixes
Address category-specific issues

Polish

Work through remaining warnings and implement notices:

Optimize performance
Add advanced schema
Enhance accessibility

Final audit

Run a full audit to verify completeness:

squirrel audit https://example.com --coverage full --format llm

Target: 95+ score across all categories.

After each fix batch, re-audit to verify improvements and catch any regressions.

Reading LLM format output

The LLM format is optimized for AI agents. Here’s how to read it:

Structure overview

<audit>
  <summary>           <!-- High-level metrics -->
  <issues>            <!-- Issues grouped by category -->
  <broken-links>      <!-- List of broken links -->
  <recommendations>   <!-- Prioritized action items -->
</audit>

Summary section

<summary>
  <score>78</score>
  <grade>C</grade>
  <pages-crawled>95</pages-crawled>
  <errors>23</errors>
  <warnings>47</warnings>
  <notices>12</notices>
</summary>

Key metrics:

score: Overall health score (0-100)
grade: Letter grade (A-F)
pages-crawled: Number of pages analyzed
errors/warnings/notices: Issue counts by severity

Issues section

<issues>
  <category name="Core SEO" score="85">
    <issue
      rule="missing-meta-description"
      severity="warning"
      rank="8"
      affected-pages="12"
    >
      <description>12 pages missing meta descriptions</description>
      <recommendation>Add unique meta descriptions (150-160 characters)</recommendation>
      <pages>
        <page>/blog/post-1</page>
        <page>/blog/post-2</page>
        ...
      </pages>
    </issue>
  </category>
</issues>

Focus on:

severity: error > warning > notice
rank: 8-10 = high impact
affected-pages: How widespread the issue is

Recommendations section

<recommendations>
  <item priority="high">
    Fix 23 broken internal links
  </item>
  <item priority="high">
    Add meta descriptions to 12 pages
  </item>
  <item priority="medium">
    Optimize 45 images (compress and use WebP)
  </item>
</recommendations>

Priorities:

high: Errors and high-rank warnings
medium: Medium-rank warnings
low: Notices and low-rank issues

Tracking progress over time

Monitor site health by comparing audits:

Compare audits

# Baseline audit
squirrel audit https://example.com --format llm
# Note the audit ID: a1b2c3d4

# After fixes, run a fresh audit
squirrel audit https://example.com --refresh --format llm
# Note the new audit ID: e5f6g7h8

# Compare to see improvements
squirrel report --diff a1b2c3d4 --format llm

Track score trends

Keep a log of audit scores:

Date	Score	Grade	Notes
2024-10-01	68	D	Baseline
2024-10-05	76	C	Fixed meta tags
2024-10-08	84	B	Fixed broken links
2024-10-11	92	A	Performance optimization
2024-10-15	97	A	Final polish

Get Started

Website Auditing

Marketing Psychology

Skills & Integration

​Interpreting results

​Understanding health scores

​Score grades

A

B

C

D

F

​What the scores mean

​Characteristics

​Action

​Characteristics

​Action

​Characteristics

​Action

​Characteristics

​Action

​Characteristics

​Action

​Severity levels

Error

Warning

Notice

​Severity prioritization

​Issue ranks

​High rank (8-10)

​Low rank (1-3)

​Category scores and grades

​Example category breakdown

​Interpreting category scores

​Prioritizing fixes

​Prioritization matrix

Decision framework

​Common issue patterns

​Score targets

Score improvement targets

​Realistic expectations

​Iterative improvement process

​Reading LLM format output

​Structure overview

​Summary section

​Issues section

​Recommendations section

​Tracking progress over time

​Compare audits

​Track score trends

​Next steps

Audit categories

Running audits

Build docs developers (and LLMs) love

Interpreting results

Understanding health scores

Score grades

What the scores mean

Characteristics

Action

Characteristics

Action

Characteristics

Action

Characteristics

Action

Characteristics

Action

Severity levels

Severity prioritization

Issue ranks

High rank (8-10)

Low rank (1-3)

Category scores and grades

Example category breakdown

Interpreting category scores

Prioritizing fixes

Prioritization matrix

Common issue patterns

Score targets

Realistic expectations

Iterative improvement process

Reading LLM format output

Structure overview

Summary section

Issues section

Recommendations section

Tracking progress over time

Compare audits

Track score trends

Next steps