Rank for the jobs you actually want.

What the check looks at.

13 checks. Your report drops any that don't apply to your business.

• How often you publish

  At least one article published in the last 90 days. When there is none, we say how long ago your newest article was.

• Quality of what you publish

  A typical article length of at least 600 words, with at least 7 in 10 of the articles we sampled answering their own title and linking to a service page.

• Content freshness

  Of your articles older than two years, fewer than half left without an update since.

• Organized by topic

  Your articles sorted into at least two categories holding two or more articles each, not counting a catch-all such as 'Blog' or 'Uncategorized' or one category holding more than 80 percent of them. Off WordPress, the category or topic pages your site lists are counted the same way.

• Sites linking to you

  How many other websites link to yours, and how strong your site rates, as an outside data source estimates them. Many of the sites in such a count are low-quality or spam sites, and the free check does not read each one, so there is nothing to pass or fail here; it is shown for reference and not counted as passed or failed.

• Estimated search visitors

  An outside estimate of visitors from search this month. There is nothing to pass or fail here; it is shown for reference and not counted as passed or failed.

• Keywords you rank for

  How many searches your site shows up for, grouped by position on the results page (an outside estimate). There is nothing to pass or fail here; it is shown for reference and not counted as passed or failed.

• Pages that bring visitors

  The pages estimated to bring the most visitors from search (an outside estimate). There is nothing to pass or fail here; it is shown for reference and not counted as passed or failed.

• Keywords competitors have and you don't

  Searches about your trade where a competitor is on Google's first two pages and your site is not (an outside estimate; the search counts are national, not local). There is nothing to pass or fail here; it is shown for reference and not counted as passed or failed.

• Ranking for buying terms

  Your site in the top 10 results or in the three map spots on the results page for at least three ready-to-buy searches, such as '<service> <town>', cost, near me or emergency, each searched on a desktop from one point on the map.

• Your name on Google

  When someone searches your business name: Google's information panel for your business, linking to your site, or your own site in first place with no directory above it.

• Who holds the map pack

  Your business in the top three of the map box when we search Google for your main service and your city from the map pin on your listing.

• Sites that link to competitors but not you

  Websites that link to both of your competitors, from an outside link index (an estimate), where that index shows no link to your site. We leave out sites the index rates under 100 of 1000 for strength or does not rate, sites it rates 20 or more out of 100 on its spam scale, sites whose home page did not open when we tried it or sends visitors to another website, your own and your competitors' sites, and sites whose home page already has a link to your site. When no site meets that bar we say so rather than list weak ones. This is a list, not a pass or fail.