Features
Understanding Health Reports
Learn how the health score is calculated, what each HTTP status code means, and how to fix issues in your sitemap.
What Is a Health Score?
The health score is a single percentage that tells you how many of your discovered URLs are in good shape. It is calculated as:
Health score = (healthy URLs ÷ total URLs) × 100
A URL is considered healthy when it returns an HTTP status code below 400 and is not a redirect. Anything else — a 4xx error, a 5xx error, or a 301/302 redirect — counts as an issue and lowers the score.
A perfect score of 100% means every URL in your sitemap resolves cleanly and serves real content. Most live sites sit somewhere between 85% and 98%; anything below 80% is worth investigating.
HTTP Status Codes
Every URL your crawler visits receives an HTTP status code from the server. Here's what the most common ones mean in the context of your sitemap.
200 OK
The server found the page and returned it successfully. This is the ideal response for every URL in your sitemap. A 200 means search engines can crawl and index the page without any friction.
301 & 302 Redirects
A 301 is a permanent redirect — the URL has moved to a new location forever. A 302 is a temporary redirect. Both cause the browser (and crawler) to follow a second request before reaching the final destination.
Redirects are flagged as issues
404 Not Found
The server cannot find the page. This usually means the URL was deleted, renamed, or mislinked somewhere on your site. 404s are the most damaging issue in a sitemap because search engines may waste crawl budget on dead pages.
404s affect your SEO
500 Server Error
The server encountered an unexpected error while processing the request. This points to a backend problem — a crashed process, a database timeout, or a misconfigured deployment. Unlike a 404, a 500 usually means the content exists but something went wrong while serving it. Re-run the crawl after fixing the underlying server issue; the status should resolve to 200.
What Counts as an Issue?
The table below summarises how each status category is classified:
| Status | Example | Healthy? |
|---|---|---|
| 2xx | 200 OK | ✓ Yes |
| 3xx | 301 Moved Permanently, 302 Found | ✗ Issue |
| 4xx | 404 Not Found, 403 Forbidden | ✗ Issue |
| 5xx | 500 Server Error, 503 Unavailable | ✗ Issue |
Filtering and Searching URLs
In the sitemap detail view you can filter the URL list by status code (e.g. show only 404s) or search by URL path. This makes it easy to triage issues on large sites without scrolling through thousands of healthy entries. Start with the "Issues only" filter to focus on what needs fixing.
Redirect Chains
A redirect chain occurs when a URL redirects to a second URL that itself redirects — for example, /old-page → /interim-page → /final-page. Each hop adds latency and dilutes link equity passed between pages. Search engines follow chains, but they do penalise excessive ones.
The fix is to update any redirect chain so the source URL points directly to the final destination in a single 301 hop. If the source URL appears in your sitemap, update it to the final destination URL directly.
Improving Your Score
Work through issues in order of severity:
- Fix 404s first. Either restore the missing page, set up a 301 redirect to the correct URL, or remove the broken link from your site's navigation so the crawler no longer discovers it.
- Resolve 5xx errors. These indicate server problems. Check your server logs, fix the underlying issue, and re-crawl.
- Clean up unnecessary redirects. Update your internal links and sitemap to point directly to the canonical URL so no redirect is needed.
- Re-run the crawl. Once you've made changes, trigger a manual refresh from the dashboard. Your health score will update to reflect the current state of your site.