SEO INSIGHTS · UPDATED MONTHLY
What 9,412 Real Audits Taught Us About On-Page SEO
Across 9,412 free audits run on InRankSEO, the most common on-page failure is a missing canonical tag, found on 41% of pages. Meta descriptions are too short on 33% of pages, 28% of pages have images without alt text, and 27% have thin content. The average page passes just 62% of its checks.
SECTION 1
The most common on-page issues
Share of audited pages failing each check.
SECTION 2
Average audit health
Across all checks on all audited pages: 62% pass, 21% warn and 17% fail.
SECTION 3 · WHAT IT MEANS
Most sites lose rankings to basics, not to algorithm changes.
Canonicals get forgotten because many templates and themes omit them entirely, so the problem repeats on every page the template produces. Nobody sees the tag, so nobody notices it is missing.
Meta descriptions get written last, often in a hurry right before publishing, and end up cut short. A short description wastes the one piece of search result copy you fully control.
SECTION 4 · METHODOLOGY AND PRIVACY
This report uses anonymous, aggregate data from free audits run on InRankSEO. It is updated monthly, and no personal or domain-level data is ever published.
Frequently asked questions
A missing canonical tag. It appeared on 41% of the 9,412 pages audited on InRankSEO.