Share of sites with each issue, by site type
| Issue | Stores (100) | WordPress sites (95) | Business sites (98) | All (293) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Broken (4xx) pages | 62.0% | 72.6% | 65.3% | 66.6% |
| Images missing alt text | 94.0% | 92.6% | 83.7% | 90.1% |
| Render-blocking resources | 95.0% | 88.4% | 88.8% | 90.8% |
| Links to redirects | 90.0% | 92.6% | 78.6% | 87.0% |
| Missing meta descriptions | 90.0% | 81.1% | 59.2% | 76.8% |
| HTTPS pages linking to HTTP | 64.0% | 89.5% | 76.5% | 76.5% |
| Missing H1 | 71.0% | 63.2% | 59.2% | 64.5% |
| Redirect chains | 19.0% | 42.1% | 19.4% | 26.6% |
| Canonical to a redirect | 5.0% | 9.5% | 5.1% | 6.5% |
Source: PageSpeed Matters, Oct 2026. Share of sites with at least one affected page; checks are crawler heuristics.
Summary
A technical SEO audit runs a site through a set of standard checks: broken pages, redirects, missing tags, slow-loading resources. We wanted to know how common those issues are on sites that already rank, so we crawled 293 of them and ran nine of the most common checks.
Two in three have broken pages. 195 of 293 crawled ranking sites (66.6%) have at least one page returning a 4xx error. Some issues are close to universal, and the median site trips 6 of the nine checks.
What we measured
We used a crawl of 293 ranking sites, capped at 1,000 pages each: 100 stores, 95 WordPress sites and 98 business sites, 195,708 URLs in all. We then summarized the page-level checks by site.
A site counts as having an issue when at least one crawled page is flagged for it. Every share in this study is a share of sites with at least one affected page, not a share of pages. A site with one broken link counts the same as a site with hundreds.
The checks are crawler heuristics, and the 1,000-page cap means larger sites are only partly covered. The nine checks are: broken (4xx) pages, images missing alt text, render-blocking resources, links to redirects, missing meta descriptions, HTTPS pages linking to HTTP, missing H1s, redirect chains and canonicals pointing to a redirect.
Two in three sites have at least one broken page
66.6% of the 293 crawled ranking sites (195) have at least one page returning a 4xx error. Typical causes are a deleted product, an old blog post or a mistyped internal link, and every one of them is a dead end for a visitor and wasted crawl time for Google.
WordPress sites are the most likely to have broken pages: 72.6% of 95 WordPress sites have at least one 4xx page, against 65.3% of 98 business sites and 62.0% of 100 stores. WordPress sites often have years of posts, tags and archive pages, and links in old content are likely to go unchanged when a page moves.
66.6%
Share of 293 crawled ranking sites with at least one page returning a 4xx error.
Some issues show up on almost every site
The most widespread issues are render-blocking resources on 90.8% of sites, images missing alt text on 90.1% and links to redirects on 87.0%. These are flagged so widely because a single page with one blocking script, one image without alt text or one link to an old URL is enough.
Below those, 76.8% of sites have pages missing a meta description, 76.5% have HTTPS pages linking to HTTP URLs and 64.5% have pages missing an H1. The rarer issues are redirect chains, on 26.6% of sites, and canonicals pointing to a redirect, on 6.5%.
Put together, the median crawled site trips 6 of these 9 checks, and the median WordPress site trips 7. A clean audit is the exception, not the norm, even among sites that rank.
Redirect problems cluster on WordPress, content gaps on stores
Redirect chains are mainly a WordPress problem. 42.1% of WordPress sites have one, against 19.4% of business sites and 19.0% of stores. 89.5% of WordPress sites also have HTTPS pages linking to HTTP URLs, against 76.5% of business sites and 64.0% of stores. Both patterns fit sites that moved to HTTPS or changed URL structures over the years and kept the old links in posts and menus.
Stores show a different pattern. They lead on missing meta descriptions (90.0% of 100) and missing H1s (71.0%), while business sites are lowest on both at 59.2%. Stores have large numbers of filter, collection and product pages built from templates, and a template that leaves out a meta description or H1 repeats that gap on every page it builds.
What this means for your site
Most sites will find several of these issues, so fix them in order of impact rather than all at once.
- Fix broken internal links first, and redirect or restore pages that still get links or traffic.
- Update internal links that point to redirects or to HTTP URLs so they go straight to the final HTTPS address. This also shortens or removes redirect chains.
- Fix templates, not pages. One missing H1 or meta description in a product or archive template affects every page it builds.
- Defer or remove render-blocking scripts and styles that are not needed for the first view.
- Add alt text to images that carry meaning, and leave purely decorative images with empty alt text.
Then crawl again to confirm the counts have dropped.
Sources
- PageSpeed Matters crawl of 293 ranking sites (up to 1,000 pages each, 195,708 URLs), October 2026
- Chrome for Developers, Eliminate render-blocking resources: https://developer.chrome.com/docs/lighthouse/performance/render-blocking-resources
Embed this research
Paste this on your site to embed the chart. It links back to the source automatically.
<iframe id="psm-technical-seo-audit-statistics" src="https://www.pagespeedmatters.com/embed/data-studies/technical-seo-audit-statistics" width="100%" height="600" style="width:100%;border:1px solid #E2E3E1;border-radius:12px" loading="lazy" title="Technical SEO Audit Stats: 2 in 3 of 293 Sites Have Broken Pages - PageSpeed Matters"></iframe>
<script>window.addEventListener("message",function(e){if(e&&e.data&&e.data.psmEmbed==="technical-seo-audit-statistics"&&e.data.height){var f=document.getElementById("psm-technical-seo-audit-statistics");if(f){f.style.height=e.data.height+"px";}}});</script>
<p style="font:14px/1.5 system-ui,sans-serif">Source: <a href="https://www.pagespeedmatters.com/resources/data-studies/technical-seo-audit-statistics">Technical SEO Audit Stats: 2 in 3 of 293 Sites Have Broken Pages - PageSpeed Matters</a></p>
Frequently asked questions
What percentage of websites have broken pages?
In our crawl of 293 ranking sites, 66.6% had at least one page returning a 4xx error. WordPress sites were most affected at 72.6%, against 65.3% of business sites and 62.0% of stores.
What are the most common technical SEO issues?
Render-blocking resources (90.8% of sites), images missing alt text (90.1%) and links to redirects (87.0%) were the most widespread, followed by missing meta descriptions (76.8%) and HTTPS pages linking to HTTP (76.5%).
How many technical SEO issues does a typical site have?
The median crawled site trips 6 of the 9 checks we ran, and the median WordPress site trips 7.
Most of these issues come from a few templates and old links, so a focused audit can clear many of them at once. Need help with this? See our SEO audit services.