Understanding Your Glimpse Health Score
When Glimpse audits your site, you get a health score from 0 to 100. Unlike simple checklist tools, this score reflects actual SEO impact—a site riddled with redirect chains and orphan pages won't score 90 just because it has <title> tags.
Here's exactly how we calculate it.
Issue Categories
Glimpse detects problems across six categories:
1. Internal Pages
The foundation—are your pages actually accessible?
| Issue | Severity | Weight |
|---|---|---|
| 5xx server error | Critical | 25 |
| 4xx client error | Critical | 20 |
| 404 not found | Critical | 20 |
A single 404 costs 20 points. Ten 404s cost 200 points. These are real problems that break your site.
2. Redirects
How your URLs route traffic.
| Issue | Severity | Weight |
|---|---|---|
| Broken redirect (ends in error) | Critical | 15 |
| Redirect chain (>1 hop) | High | 10 |
| 302 redirect (should be 301) | Medium | 3 |
| HTTP→HTTPS redirect | Info | 1 |
| 3xx redirect (general) | Info | 0 |
Why redirect chains matter: Each hop adds latency and loses link equity. A chain of A→B→C→D means search engines follow four requests to reach your content.
Why 302 vs 301 matters: 301 is permanent (passes link equity), 302 is temporary (doesn't). Using 302 for permanent redirects wastes your SEO authority.
3. Indexability
Can search engines actually index your content?
| Issue | Severity | Weight |
|---|---|---|
| Canonical points to redirect | High | 10 |
| Canonical points to error | Critical | 15 |
| Indexable page became non-indexable | High | 8 |
| Blocked by robots.txt | Info | 0 |
| Has noindex directive | Info | 0 |
The canonical trap: If your canonical URL redirects elsewhere, search engines get confused about which URL is authoritative. This is surprisingly common after site migrations.
4. Links
How your pages connect internally.
| Issue | Severity | Weight |
|---|---|---|
| Orphan page (no incoming links) | High | 8 |
| Page has no outgoing links | Medium | 5 |
| Links to redirect | Low | 2 |
| Links to error page | High | 10 |
| Broken internal link | Critical | 15 |
Orphan pages exist but aren't linked from anywhere else on your site. Search engines struggle to discover them, and they get less crawl priority.
No outgoing links means the page is a dead end. Internal links distribute authority and help users navigate.
5. Content & Meta
Traditional SEO checks.
| Issue | Severity | Weight |
|---|---|---|
| Missing title | High | 8 |
| Missing H1 | Medium | 5 |
| Missing meta description | Medium | 3 |
| Multiple H1 tags | Low | 2 |
| Title too long (>60 chars) | Low | 2 |
| Description too long (>160 chars) | Low | 1 |
| Duplicate title | Medium | 5 |
| Duplicate description | Medium | 4 |
6. Social
Open Graph and Twitter Card tags.
| Issue | Severity | Weight |
|---|---|---|
| Missing OG image | Low | 2 |
| Missing OG title | Low | 2 |
| Missing Twitter card | Low | 1 |
These don't affect search rankings but impact how your links look when shared.
The Scoring Formula
We don't use simple percentage deductions. Instead:
rawPenalty = sum(issueCount × issueWeight)
scaledMax = sqrt(totalPages) × 50
healthScore = max(0, 100 - (rawPenalty / scaledMax × 100))
Why Square Root Scaling?
A 10-page site and a 1000-page site shouldn't be scored identically. But linear scaling would make large sites always score higher. Square root provides balanced scaling:
- 10 pages: max penalty ~158
- 100 pages: max penalty ~500
- 1000 pages: max penalty ~1581
This means:
- Small sites aren't unfairly punished
- Large sites can't hide problems in volume
- Real issues always hurt the score
Real-World Example
Consider a site with 41 pages:
| Issue | Count | Weight | Penalty |
|---|---|---|---|
| 404 page | 1 | 20 | 20 |
| 4xx page | 1 | 20 | 20 |
| Canonical→redirect | 39 | 10 | 390 |
| Redirect chain | 1 | 10 | 10 |
| 302 redirects | 2 | 3 | 6 |
| Broken redirect | 1 | 15 | 15 |
| Orphan pages | 5 | 8 | 40 |
| No outgoing links | 2 | 5 | 10 |
| Total Penalty | 511 |
With 41 pages: scaledMax = sqrt(41) × 50 ≈ 320
healthScore = max(0, 100 - (511/320 × 100))
healthScore = max(0, 100 - 159.7)
healthScore = 0
Wait—that's below zero, capped at 0. This site has severe structural problems. A near-zero score is accurate.
Compare to a naive system that divides by page count:
naiveScore = 100 - (511/41) = 87.5
An 87 score for a site with 39 broken canonicals? That's misleading.
Score Ranges
| Score | Rating | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 90-100 | Excellent | Minor issues only. Well-maintained site. |
| 75-89 | Good | Some problems, but fundamentals are solid. |
| 50-74 | Fair | Structural issues need attention. |
| 25-49 | Poor | Significant problems affecting SEO. |
| 0-24 | Critical | Major structural failures. Prioritize fixing. |
What Affects Score Most?
In order of impact:
- HTTP errors (4xx, 5xx) - Broken pages break everything
- Broken redirects - Traffic goes nowhere
- Canonical issues - Search engines get confused
- Redirect chains - Compound latency and lost equity
- Orphan pages - Hidden from discovery
- Missing titles - Invisible in search results
Improving Your Score
Quick Wins
- Fix 4xx/5xx errors - Check server logs, restore or redirect broken pages
- Flatten redirect chains - Update links to point to final destinations
- Fix broken canonicals - Point to actual, accessible URLs
Structural Fixes
- Link to orphan pages - Add navigation or contextual links
- Add outgoing links - Every page should link somewhere useful
- Convert 302→301 - Make permanent redirects actually permanent
Content Fixes
- Add missing titles - Every page needs a unique title
- Add meta descriptions - Improve click-through from search results
- Fix duplicate content - Unique titles and descriptions per page
Tracking Progress
Your health score is a snapshot. Run audits regularly to:
- Track improvement: See your score rise as you fix issues
- Catch regressions: New deployments can introduce problems
- Compare over time: Are things getting better or worse?
We store your audit history so you can see the trend, not just today's number.
Score vs. Competitors
How does Glimpse compare to other tools?
We've validated our scoring against professional SEO tools. A site scoring 31 in Ahrefs should score similarly in Glimpse—not 90+. If our scores diverged significantly, we'd investigate and fix our detection.
The goal isn't a feel-good number. It's an accurate reflection of your site's health.
Ready to see your real score? Run an audit at get-glimpse.com. If it's lower than expected, that's useful information—now you know what to fix.
Questions about scoring? Email ashish.so@redon.ai