What does it all mean?
Every number, badge, and acronym on WebWatch, explained in plain English with real-world examples and what each one actually does for your site. No jargon, no fluff.
Is the site up, and how often is it down?
Each time we check your site we get back a healthy page, a redirect, an error, or nothing at all. We label that result, and that label shows up everywhere. Click a status to see exactly what your visitors would experience.
If you ran 100 checks and 99 came back UP, your uptime is 99%. We show this over the last 48 hours on every site. It sounds great, but 99% works out at nearly 15 minutes of downtime every day. That is a checkout that fails for 15 minutes of shoppers. Most production sites aim for 99.9% or better.
Why are there so many timing numbers?
Loading a page is not one step, it is a relay. Splitting it out shows you exactly where the slow bit is. Hover or tap each leg of the race below.
Each leg hands the baton to the next. Total time is the whole race, start to finish.
Average
The mean total time across every check in the window. A handful of slow checks can drag this up, so always read it next to P95.
P95
95% of checks finished faster than this number; the worst 5% were slower. P95 catches the bad-day-for-some-users cases an average hides.
For TTFB, under 500 ms is good and under 200 ms is great. For total time, under 2 seconds feels snappy on broadband and under 1 second is what shopping carts and SaaS dashboards aim for. Mobile networks add roughly 100 to 300 ms on top, so design for that.
The padlock, the headers, and your safety nets
Most security warnings are about how your site is delivered, not how it is built, and fixing them takes minutes. Tap each layer to add it to your shield.
If you see SSL days under 14, sort it now. Most providers (Let's Encrypt, Cloudflare, your host's panel) renew automatically, but if that job fails quietly, the first you will know is when visitors hit a scary red security warning. We flag any certificate inside 30 days.
What an SEO audit checks, and why it matters
Search ranking has hundreds of signals, but the on-page stuff we can actually see is small and tidy. Get it right and you have built a solid foundation. Here is a tag in action:
Page title
The text in the <title> tag. Shows in browser tabs, search results, and social shares. Aim for 20 to 70 characters that describe the page clearly.
Meta description
The short summary search engines often show under your title. 50 to 160 characters. It does not affect ranking directly, but a good one improves click-through.
H1 tag
The main heading on the page. There should be exactly one. Search engines use it to understand what the page is about.
Canonical URL
Tells search engines which version of a page is the "real" one when the same content lives at multiple URLs. Stops duplicate-content issues.
Open Graph & Twitter Cards
Tags that decide how your link looks when shared on Facebook, LinkedIn, X, Slack, or iMessage. Without them you get a bare URL; with them, a tidy card with image.
Structured data
Machine-readable data (usually JSON-LD) describing what your page is: a product, article, recipe, or FAQ. Unlocks rich results like star ratings or expandable answers.
Sitemap.xml
A list of every URL you want indexed. Helps search engines discover pages they might miss by following links alone.
robots.txt
Instructions for crawlers about which paths they may visit. Useful for keeping admin or duplicate URLs out of search results.
Image alt text
A short description of every image. Screen readers use it for blind visitors and search engines use it to understand image content. Missing alt text is a common, fast win.
Every audit on a saved site is stored, so the score line on its detail page tells you whether your last change helped or hurt. SEO is not a single push, it is a habit. Aim for a steadily climbing line, not a one-time perfect score.
Build your own score
The SEO score is just a weighted sum, where higher-impact items are worth more points. No magic, just a rubric. Tick the boxes to watch your score and grade climb in real time.
Tick the checks you have completed to build a score.
Excellent foundation
Strong, minor polish
Decent, room to grow
Several issues
Significant gaps
Acronyms you will see around the site
Every three-letter mystery, decoded. Type to filter.
Now try it on your own site
Run a one-off check or save a site to track uptime and SEO over time. The free plan covers 10 sites, no card needed.