The Search Atlas Site Audit scans your website and surfaces technical SEO issues that may be hurting your rankings. This article explains how audit results are counted and displayed, which types of issues require a web developer to fix, and what Search Atlas can — and cannot — do on your behalf.
Search Atlas counts issues at the page-instance level, meaning the same issue type is counted once for every page where it appears. For example, if 50 pages are missing a meta description, the audit reports 50 instances — not one issue. This approach gives you a precise picture of how widespread each problem is across your site.
You may notice that your issue count looks higher compared to other SEO tools. This is intentional: tools that deduplicate by issue type can mask the true scale of a problem. Search Atlas prioritises accuracy so you can make informed prioritisation decisions.
When reviewing audit results, you can identify which specific pages are affected by each issue type. Here is how to get the most out of the reporting:
Open your project and navigate to the Site Audit report.
Select any issue category to see its detail view.
The issue detail view lists the affected URLs so you know exactly which pages need attention.
Use this page-level data to prioritise fixes — start with high-traffic or high-priority pages first.
If a page fails to crawl during the audit, it may not appear in the results. This does not mean the page is issue-free; it means the crawler could not access it. Common causes include server-side restrictions, login-protected pages, or pages that were otherwise inaccessible to the crawler. Check those pages manually if you suspect they were skipped.
Search Atlas is an SEO intelligence and automation platform. Through OTTO SEO, the platform can automatically apply certain on-page optimisations, including meta title and description updates and heading tag optimisations, when OTTO has the necessary site access and the relevant automation is active. Refer to the OTTO SEO section of the platform for details on which automations are available and how to enable them.
Many technical SEO issues flagged in the audit sit at the infrastructure or code level and cannot be resolved by an SEO platform alone. Issues in this category typically include:
Site speed and Core Web Vitals — server response times, render-blocking resources, image optimisation at scale
Crawlability and indexability problems — misconfigured robots.txt files, redirect chains, or canonicalisation errors that require direct server or CMS access
Structural or template-level changes — fixes that must be applied across your site's codebase or CMS templates
If you are unsure whether an issue requires developer involvement, review the issue description in the audit report for guidance, or consult with your web developer before making changes.
If you need further assistance, open the chat widget in the bottom-right corner of the platform and type human teammate to be connected with a member of our team.