All 100+ Semrush Site Audit errors (and how to fix them)

The site audit consists of three parts:

• Errors
• Warnings
• Notices

And in this article, for each error, warning and notice, I'm going to explain to you exactly what it means and how best to fix it. Errors are the most urgent, then warnings and then notices.

Disclaimer: In theory, everything can be solved by yourself, but I'm mostly sharing from my own experience how 9 times out of 10 you can pick this up quickly as a marketer.

Second disclaimer: some advice has no or almost no impact on SEO and so you don't need to pick it up. And sometimes things can even be a conscious choice. It doesn't mean that when Semrush reports it, it's actually bad.

Errors

X pages have a slow page speed

Explanation: The page loading time is not good and too long. This is not nice for the user and for Google.
Solution: Improve the page load time. This can have to do with images, minification, the number of scripts and a dozen other things. I recommend that you put the pages into Google PageSpeed and optimize the pages from there.

X pages returned 5XX status code

Explanation: A (temporary) error on the server that prevents the browser or search engine from reaching the page.
Solution: To solve this, you first need to know specifically what kind of error this is. A 500 error? A 506? Or perhaps a 501? Then you can very specifically look for the solution by Googling the error code.

X pages returned 4XX status code

Explanation: When a page is deleted or a wrong URL is used, you get a 4XX error.
Solution: Restore the page, if you accidentally deleted it. If not, create a redirect and remove the link, if it is still used anywhere.

X pages don't have title tags

Explanation: The title tag is the title of the page. You can include it with the Yoast plugin, for example. Every page should always have a title tag.
Solution: Add the title tag to the page. This can be done through HTML, a plugin you use or another SEO tool that is in your website.

X issues with duplicate title tags

Explanation: There are 2 or more pages with the same title tag.
Solution: Make the title tag unique for each page.

X pages have duplicate content issues

Explanation: There are 2 or more pages with virtually the same content. This involves both images and text.
Solution: Make each page as unique as possible and make sure the pages have less overlap and less similar content.

X internal links are broken

Explanation: An internal link is a link within your website. For example, from the homepage to your contact page. Suppose the page has been removed or you have used a wrong link, it is broken.
Solution: Modify the internal link so that you get directly to the right page.

X pages couldn't be crawled

Explanation: The page could not be crawled by Semrush because it took longer than 5 seconds or the server did not allow access to the page.
Solution: Chances are you can't fix this yourself. Give the URLs to your developer first and if he can't figure it out, you should go to your hosting provider.

X pages couldn't be crawled (DNS resolution issues)

Explanation: The page cannot be crawled because something is not quite right at the DNS level.
Solution: Contact the hosting party and communicate the problem.

X pages couldn't be crawled (incorrect URL formats)

Explanation: The page cannot be crawled because there is something wrong with the URL. This could be a spelling error, a wrong symbol (for example, the wrong slash) or unnecessary characters.
Solution: Make sure the URL does not contain any errors. Remove unnecessary and wrong characters and make sure the URL is correct.

X internal images are broken

Explanation: An image loaded but not displayed because it is broken or the URL is incorrect.
Solution: Reset the image to the URL, change the incorrect URL, add a new image or delete the loaded code.

X pages have duplicate meta descriptions

Explanation: Two or more pages have the same meta description. That's the description you see in Google.
Solution: Modify the duplicate meta descriptions to ensure that each page has a unique meta description.

Robots.txt file has format errors

Explanation: The robots.txt is your website's manual. If you see this error, then there is an error in your robots.txt. This could be a spelling error or some other error.
Solution: Remove the misspelling or error from your robots.txt. Test your robots.txt with Google robots.txt Tester to find out what the specific problem is. Then fix this.

X sitemap.xml files have format errors

Explanation: The sitemap.xml is the map of your website and if you see this error, then there is an error in your sitemap. This can be a textual error, but also another error.
Solution: get your sitemap into Google Search Console and find out what the error is. If you know what the error is, then you also know what to Google for or what to do.

X incorrect pages found in sitemap.xml

Explanation: A URL or page that is in your sitemap but doesn't belong there. This could be because the URL is redirected, the canonical is wrong or the page is not working.
Solution: Remove or set the redirect correctly, adjust the canonical or make the page work again. It depends on the cause. You can figure this out by going to the URL that is wrong and then analyzing where it goes wrong.

X pages have a WWW resolve issue

Explanation: One domain name runs on www and another runs on non-www. This varies for each website. But a website should not run on www and non-www at the same time. Not only will you have duplicate content but also a host of other problems.
Solution: Ensure that the www variant of your website redirects to the non-www, if your website runs on non-www. Or ensure that the non-www variant redirects to the www variant, if your website is running on the www variant. I recommend coordinating this with your developer. You can often do this by adding a piece of code in the htaccess.

X pages have no viewport tag

Explanation: The viewport meta tag is a piece of code that you have on your page. It is important for the size of the page. Especially for scaling your website and your mobile website.
Solution: adding the viewport meta tag. Chances are you can't do this yourself, so you'll have to ask your developer to pick it up.

X pages have too large HTML size

Explanation: If the HTML is larger than 2MB, you will see this message. That means the page is actually too big. And you need to fix that.
Solution: Removing unnecessary HTML, removing inline scripts and css and looking critically at the structure of the HTML. Again, you have to do this in consultation with the developer.

X AMP pages have no canonical tag

Explanation: The canonical is one of the most important ways to solve duplicate content. AMP pages, of course, are pages that are the same in terms of content, but the AMP version. In other words, that's also duplicate content.
Solution: Making sure the AMP pages have a canonical. And should you only have an AMP version of your website, the canonical itself should be referring.

X issues with hreflang values

Explanation: You use the hreflang if you have a multilingual website. With it you indicate which country and which language your website is for. If you see this error, then the language or country code is not correct.
Solution: Make sure the language and country code are in the correct format.

X hreflang conflicts within page source code

Explanation: In the point above, I explained what the hreflang is. When the hreflang conflicts with the canonical, with other hreflangs or with the hreflang intended for that page, you will see this message.
Solution: Make sure the canonical, the hreflang for that page and the hreflangs of other pages do not conflict. The hreflang of the canonical should match the hreflang of the page.

X issues with incorrect hreflang links

Explanation: An incorrect hreflang is one that is incorrectly redirected, broken or relative.
Solution: Removing the redirect, fixing it, repairing it, or making the hreflang absolute (In other words, passing along a fixed URL instead of a variable URL).

X non-secure pages

Explanation: A non-secure page is a non-secure page (a page that runs on HTTP, not HTTPS) that requires you to enter a password,
Solution: Convert the HTTP page to an HTTPS page or put the login function on another page that is HTTPS.

X issues with expiring or expired certificate

Explanation: You need an SSL certificate to run your website on HTTPS. If your SSL certificate has expired or is about to expire, you will see this message.
Solution: Renew or reapply for your SSL certificate. The hosting party or the developer can do this for you.

X issues with old security protocol

Explanation: If your website is running an old protocol (e.g. TLS version 1.0) then your website is not secure.
Solution: Update the protocol within the website. This is also something your developer should do.

X issues with incorrect certificate name

Explanation: You request an SSL certificate for a specific domain name. That domain name is also reflected in the certificate. If the name in the certificate does not match the URL where the certificate is located, you get this message.
Solution: Make sure the domain name matches the domain name in the SSL certificate. There are solutions for multisites and sub-domains. For example, a wildcard SSL or multi-domain SSL. Ask your hosting party or developer about this.

X issues with mixed content

Explanation: If your page is running on HTTPS, but you have HTTP links in the content. These can be images, but also internal links.
Solution: Change all links on that page to HTTPS.

No redirect or canonical to HTTPS homepage from HTTP version

Explanation: If you run an HTTP and HTTPS variant of your homepage, which I advise against anyway and which really shouldn't happen, then you should set a canonical to the HTTPS variant from the HTTP variant. To avoid duplicate content.
Solution: I've actually said it already, but you need to add a canonical from the HTTP to the HTTPS variant.

X redirect chains and loops

Explanation: When you add a redirect, on a redirect and on a redirect, you get a kind of redirect train. Or a redirect chain. You want to avoid too long a chain and you also definitely don't want a redirect loop. This occurs when A links to B, B links to C, C links to D and D links to B again.
Solution: Put as few redirects on redirects as possible. Also, always adjust URLs when you redirect them in the code. And redirect loops should never be allowed, of course. You should always remove them.

X AMP HTML issues

Explanation: An AMP page must meet a variety of requirements in order to qualify for AMP. If the page does not meet the requirements, then you will not be shown in Google and will not enjoy the benefits. If you specifically see this error then there are problems with the HTML.
Solution: Making sure your website meets all AMP requirements. And then specifically focused on the HTML.

X AMP style and layout issues

Explanation: See above explanation, but this is about styling and layout.
Solution: Making sure your website meets all AMP requirements. And then especially focused on the styling.

X AMP templating issues

Explanation: See explanation above, but now it's specifically about the template.
Solution: Making sure your website meets all AMP requirements. And then specifically focused on the template.

X pages with a broken canonical link

Explanation: You use the canonical to resolve duplicate content. But in addition, you also want pages to have a self-referencing canonical if possible. To avoid confusion. The canonical is important for both crawling and indexing so you always want to use it if possible. You will see this message if the canonical is broken.
Solution: Change the canonical so it is no longer broken and is correct. And thus also works.

X pages have multiple canonical URLs

Explanation: A page should always have only one canonical. Never more than one.
Solution: Remove all unnecessary and duplicate canonicals.

X pages have a meta refresh tag

Explanation: The meta refresh tag is a technique that is old and should be forgotten. It has become so unimportant (and unnecessary) that I'm not going to explain it either. The redirect is the replacement for the meta refresh tag.
Solution: remove the meta refresh tag and use a redirect.

X issues with broken internal JavaScript and CSS files

Explanation: When you look at the code (HTML) of your website, there are all kinds of things in there. One of those things might be a JavaScript or CSS file. If that link is broken, you will see this message.
Solution: Remove, modify or fix the link to the file.

X subdomains don't support secure encryption algorithms

Explanation: To be perfectly honest I have not encountered this error yet so I had to look for a simple explanation myself. Semrush gives this error when they see that the server is using an old algorithm. This is a security issue and needs to be addressed.
Solution: Contact the webdeveloper / hosting party and ask them to update the algorithms.

X sitemap.xml files are too large

Explanation: When your sitemap is larger than 50MB or contains more than 50,000 URLs. Your sitemap is really too big.
Solution: Make your sitemap smaller and remove any unnecessary links from the sitemap. If that's not an option, then split your sitemap into multiple sitemaps.

X links couldn't be crawled (incorrect URL formats)

Explanation: If a URL has a typo or contains the wrong slash, for example ( instead of /), the URL may not be crawled.
Solution: Remove the typo or the wrong symbol.

X structured data items are invalid

Explanation: Structured data is a piece of code that makes certain content more understandable to Google. However, the code must meet Google's requirements or Google will not accept it.
Solution: Make sure the structured data meets Google's requirements. Throw the URL into Google's Rich Result Test and find out what the errors are.

X pages are missing the viewport width value

Explanation: The viewport tag gives the browser instructions on how to scale the page. And if data is missing from the viewport, you will get this message.
Solution: Making sure the viewport is complete is something the developer should pick up.

If all goes well, you have now fixed the most pressing errors. Nice work! But you are not there yet. Now it is time to start working with the warnings.

Warning

X external links are broken

Explanation: An external link is a link to another website. If the link is entered incorrectly or the page is deleted, you have a broken link.
Solution: Remove the link or make sure the link is modified properly.

X outgoing internal link contains a nofollow attribute

Explanation: If a link has been given a nofollow then crawlers will not follow the link. In other words, the value will not be passed on.
Solution: If you did this on purpose, you don't have to do anything with this. It's not a big deal at all. Do you want the value to be passed on? Then you need to remove the link?

X external images are broken

Explanation: You can put images on your website and load them, of course, but you can also load them externally. In other words, you put an image on your website from someone else. And if this image is removed or the link is wrong, that is not good.
Solution: Modify or remove the link to the image.

X links on HTTPS pages leads to HTTP page

Explanation: Ideally, you want all links within your website to be HTTPS links. That's more secure. HTTP links you always want to avoid.
Solution: Convert the HTTP link to an HTTPS link.

X pages don't have enough text within the title tags

Explanation: The title tag is also called the SEO title or meta title. You can use about 50 characters in this. If you use only 20 characters, for example, you are missing out on opportunities.
Solution: Make sure the title tag is about 50 characters.

X pages have too much text within the title tags

Explanation: I just told you that the title tag should be about 50 characters. Don't make the title tag much longer and certainly not more than 60 characters. Then it will be too long.
Solution: Shorten the title tag to 50 characters.

X pages don't have an h1 heading

Explanation: The H1 is the most important headline on a page. This is where you put your most important keyword and it is also important for the UX of a page. Every page should have one H1 and should also only have one H1.
Solution: Adding an H1 to the page.

X pages have duplicate H1 and title tags

Explanation: It's not a big deal if the H1 and the title tag are the same, but Semrush reports it. That's what this error is for.
Solution: Should you want to pick this up, you need to change the H1 or title tag so that they are unique from each other.

X pages don't have meta descriptions

Explanation: The meta description is the long description that you see in Google when you Google something. It is particularly important for findability and the click-through to the search result. If your page does not have a meta description, you will see this message.
Solution: Provide the page with a meta description.

X pages have too many on-page links

Explanation: An on-page link is an internal or external link on the page. If you have more than 3,000 links on a page, you will see this notification.
Solution: Make sure the page has a maximum of 3000 links (although I think that's also a lot). Take this advice from Semrush with a grain of salt.

X URLs with a temporary redirect

Explanation: When you have an internal link to a page that is redirected, you get this message.
Solution: Change the URL on the page, to the redirected URL.

X images don't have alt attributes

Explanation: The alt tag is an attribute of the image that allows you to tell search engines what the image is about. This is an important part for SEO and should not be forgotten to add.
Solution: Add the alt to the image.

X pages have low text-HTML ratio

Explanation: The text-HTML ratio is the ratio of plain text to HTML on a page. When you have a low text-HTML ratio, the website has a lot of HTML (code) and little text. And that's crazy, because content is just so important for the search engine. You get this error when the text-HTML ratio is 10%.
Solution: Add text to the pages to improve the text-HTML ratio.

X pages have too many parameters in their URLs

Explanation: A parameter is an addition to the URL and is used for example as UTM or with the filters of a web shop. If you use more than 4 parameters, the URL becomes very long and does not invite clicking on it.
Solution: Make sure you use a maximum of 4 parameters and remove extra parameters if necessary.

X pages have no hreflang and lang attributes

Explanation: With the hreflang you specify the country and language for which your page is intended. This is especially important when you have a website in multiple languages. If you have a multilingual website, but no hreflangs, you will see this message.
Solution: Add the hreflang to the pages that do not have a hreflang.

X pages don't have character encoding declared

Explanation: Again, this is one I haven't come across very often, so here I had to use my great friend Google for this. If you see this message, there is a piece of information missing that the browser needs to display the content.
Solution: add the missing piece of information.

X pages don't have doctype declared

Explanation: The doctype indicates to browsers which version of HTML or XHTML is being used. Every page must have a doctype.
Solution: Make sure the doctype is added to the page.

X pages have a low word count

Explanation: If your page has less than 200 words, Semrush considers it too little. Content is obviously very important when it comes to SEO, so make sure each page has valuable content.
Solution: Complete the page to at least 200 words (or more).

X pages have incompatible plugin content

Explanation: If there is content on the page that is based on technology such as Flash, JavaApple or Silverlight, you will see this message. Content that are based on that technique don't work well on mobile. And that's bad for your SEO.
Solution: remove the content or use new techniques.

X pages contain frames

Explanation: A frame or an iframe is a piece of loaded content that is somewhere else/from somewhere else. Google cannot see or read this content and therefore it is not good for your SEO.
Solution: Avoid using frames and iframes and, if you can, make sure the content is on the website itself.

X pages have underscores in the URL

Explanation: A low dash in the URL of a page (_).
Solution: Replace the low dash with a dash (-).

Sitemap.xml not indicated in robots.txt

Explanation: To make the sitemap more accessible to Google, you can put it in the robots.txt.
Solution: Add the URL of the sitemap to the robots.txt.

Sitemap.xml not found

Explanation: In this article I explained to you earlier what a sitemap is. If Semrush cannot find it, you will get this message.
Solution: Make sure your website has a sitemap. Should your website already have a sitemap, make sure it is on even of the usual URLs. For example /sitemap.xml or /sitemap_index.xml.

Homepage does not use HTTPS encryption

Explanation: The home page of your website does not have HTTPS and is running on HTTP.
Solution: Make sure the website runs on HTTPS. Your developer or hosting party can help you with this.

X subdomains don't support SNI

Explanation: If your Web server does not use SNI, while using HTTPS, you will see this message. You can quickly forget about the SNI, but it has to do with security.
Solution: Contact your developer or hosting party to fix the SNI at the server level.

X HTTP URLs in sitemap.xml for HTTPS site

Explanation: By now you know that internal HTTP links are not allowed. And therefore not in your sitemap either.
Solution: Change the HTTP links to HTTPS links (in your sitemap).

X uncompressed pages

Explanation: One method of making your pages faster is by applying an optimization called compression. By doing so, you make your page smaller.
Solution: Optimize your page with this method.

X issues with blocked internal resources in robots.txt

Explanation: By including a URL, document, image or file with a disallow in your robots.txt, you can ensure that this content is not crawled. If that was a conscious choice, you may ignore this notification.
Solution: If it was not a conscious decision and you do want the content to be crawled, you should remove the disallow from the robots.txt.

X issues with uncompressed JavaScript and CSS files

Explanation: JavaScript and CSS files can also be optimized by applying compression.
Solution: optimize JavaScript and CSS files by applying compression. Your developer can easily pick this up for you as well.

X issues with uncached JavaScript and CSS files

Explanation: Cache is another method of improving the speed of your website. When you turn on caching, files are stored locally so they load faster.
Solution: Apply caching for the JavaScript and CSS files.

X pages have a JavaScript and CSS total size that is too large

Explanation: When the size of the JavaScript and CSS files exceeds 2MB, Semrush considers it too large. The larger the JavaScript and CCS files are, the slower your website will be.
Solution: Make sure the files are no larger than 2MB.

X pages use too many JavaScript and CSS files

Explanation: The more external files there are in the HTML, the slower a Web site is. JavaScript and CSS are examples of those files. If a page has more than 100 such files, you get this message.
Solution: Make sure the number of JavaScript and CSS files is as small as possible.

X issues with unminified JavaScript and CSS files

Explanation: Another method to improve the speed of your website is to minify files. This applies to your HTML as well as your JavaScript and CSS files.
Solution: Minify the JavaScript and CSS files.

X link URLs are too long

Explanation: URLs should not be too long. This is not pleasant for users and conversion. In fact, it can look cluttered. Semrush indicates that URLs with more than 200 characters can cause problems, as certain browsers cannot handle it.
Solution: Always make sure your URLs are as short as possible. Adjust URLs that are too long, but don't forget to redirect them.

If you've gotten this far, then you're well on your way to improving your Web site. Time for the last bit, the notices.

Notices

X links have no anchor text

Explanation: The anchor text is the text that is clickable and has the link behind it to another website. This anchor text is important for SEO. Both for internal and external links. You get this message if the anchor is empty or naked. An empty anchor I think you understand, a naked anchor is the full URL as anchor.
Solution: Change the anchor to a normal word or link. Take this with a grain of salt, though, because sometimes you want a link to be naked.

X outgoing external links contain nofollow attributes

Explanation: If a link has been given a nofollow, then the search engine will not follow the link and will not provide the value.
Solution: If you have intentionally done this, you may ignore it. Do you want Google to follow the links? Then you need to make them follow links.

X links on this page have non-descriptive anchor text

Explanation: A non-descriptive anchor is an anchor such as "click here" or "here" or "link. So this is an anchor that is actually meaningless.
Solution: Change the anchor to another word or phrase that makes more sense and better describes the link.

X pages have only one incoming internal link

Explanation: To make a page easily findable by the search engine, it is important for a page to have many internal links. And not just one.
Solution: Add more internal links to the page. For example, in existing content or in the footer.

X orphaned pages in sitemaps

Explanation: An orphan page is a page within your website that does not have any internal links. Basically every page does always show up in your sitemap, therefore Semrush sees the page, but also immediately sees that the page has no internal link.
Solution: If this is an important page for SEO, add as many relevant internal links as possible.

X pages need more than 3 clicks to be reached

Explanation: If a page is important to the search engines and to the target audience, you want them to be able to find it quickly. And therefore don't have to click too much. Semrush gives this notice if a page takes more than 3 clicks to reach.
Solution: link the page differently or better internally, so that it doesn't need so many clicks to reach the page.

X issues with blocked external resources in robots.txt

Explanation: As mentioned before, you can exclude certain content from being crawled by means of a disallow in your robots.txt. If you see this message, then you have loaded content on your page that is blocked in the robots.txt of the website you are loading content externally from.
Solution: If this content is important to your website, you can ask them to remove the disallow. If they are not that important, you can leave it off.

X links to external pages or resources returned a 403 HTTP status code

Explanation: A 403 error is an error caused by the crawler being blocked at the server level.
Solution: Ask the owner of the website if this is indeed the intent. Should it be the intent, you may ignore it.

X URLs with a permanent redirect

Explanation: If you deleted a page, you create a redirect. If you link internally to the old page, the original link is still in your website.
Solution: Update the link to the redirected page.

X subdomains don't support HSTS

Explanation: HSTS allows browsers to communicate with servers through HTTPS. So if you don't have HSTS, it's not ideal for the security of your website.
Solution: add HSTS at the hosting level. Ask your hosting party if they will put this in place.

X pages have more than one H1 tag

Explanation: Each page should and must have only one H1. And so not 2. Or 6.
Solution: Make sure the page has only one H1 and remove the rest.

X pages are blocked from crawling

Explanation: Before a page can be indexed, it must first be crawled. And you can block that crawling by putting a disallow in the robots.txt for the page.
Solution: You may have done this quite deliberately. Should that be the case, ignore this. Do you want your page to be easily findable in Google? Then take the disallow off.

X page URLs are longer than 200 characters

Explanation: A long URL is not nice for SEO and not useful for your marketing communications. But Google doesn't like long URLs either.
Solution: Make sure your URLs are as short as possible.

Robots.txt not found

Explanation: The robots.txt is your website's manual and very important for your SEO. So you definitely want to have this one.
Solution: Make sure you have a robots.txt.

X pages have hreflang language mismatch issues

Explanation: With a hreflang, you want to indicate which country and language a page is intended for. If the hreflang does not match the language of the page, you will get this message.
Solution: Make sure that the text used matches the hreflang. So no German text with a Dutch hreflang.

Connect your Google Analytics account to view if your website has orphaned pages

Explanation: Semrush likes it when you link Analytics to their platform (because then they can use and see all your data). Then they get even more data and can say more about your website. For example, whether a page has no internal links.
Solution: link Google Analytics and give any orphaned pages more internal links.

Connect your Google Analytics account to view pages that take more than 1 second to become interactive

Explanation: Why Semrush wants you to link Analytics, I just explained. With that, they can also see how long it takes your website to respond to a click, for example.
Solution: link Google Analytics to your website and pick up any slow pages.

X pages blocked by X-Robots-Tag: noindex HTTP header

Explanation: The famous noindex. If a page is on noindex, then it is not indexed in Google.
Solution: If this was the intent, then you may ignore it. Was it not intended? Then remove the noindex.

X issues with broken external JavaScript and CSS files

Explanation: When an external JavaScript or CSS file is removed or the URL is incorrect, you get this message.
Solution: Modify the link so that it is correct or remove the link altogether.

X resources are formatted as page link

Explanation: If you want to load certain content, you have to do it the right way. You should not load everything with an a href (for example, images or CSS files).
Solution: Load all content the right way.