Methodology

Accuracy matters more to us than the number of tools. This page explains how results are produced and labelled.

Four kinds of result

• Verified. Computed directly from the input you provided using a deterministic algorithm (word counts, encoding, parsing, validation). These are covered by automated tests with known answers.
• Fetched. Taken from a live HTTP request our server made at the time shown. We list the checked URL, the UTC time and the data source.
• Estimated. Produced by a heuristic, for example syllable counts for readability or title pixel widths. Treat as approximate.
• Self-assessed or unavailable. Checklists reflect your answers. If a metric needs a data provider that is not connected (search volume, backlinks, authority), we say it is unavailable rather than show a number.

Live checks

URL tools identify themselves as SEOReportToolsBot, follow redirects up to ten hops, read up to about 2 MB of a response and work within a time limit. They connect only to public internet addresses on ports 80, 443, 8080 and 8443; private, local and cloud-metadata addresses are blocked on every redirect. They do not run JavaScript, so content added by scripts is not seen. Results can differ from what Google or your visitors experience because of location, caching, bot blocking and rendering.

Limits we state on every tool

Each tool page lists what it does, how it works, an example, how to read the result, its limitations and its accuracy notes. No tool claims to predict rankings, indexing, AI citations or ad-programme approval.

Data sources

Structured-data rules, robots.txt matching, sitemap limits and Core Web Vitals thresholds follow published specifications and Google Search Central documentation. The PageSpeed Insights tool uses Google's official API. Search Console and Google Analytics data, if shown to the site owner, comes only from the official Google APIs.