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Website health check: 13 things to check on your website and how to read the score
A website can run for years while quietly ageing: the certificate is about to expire, plugins have not been updated for ages, and Google ranks it below competitors. Here are 13 things worth checking at least twice a year — and how to understand the result without a developer.
Why check a website that works
«It works» only means the home page opens. Most problems are invisible from outside: an outdated platform version that makes the site easy to hack; company email that anyone can spoof; pages Google cannot see; a slow mobile site that visitors leave before it loads. Owners usually find out too late — when the site is flagged as dangerous, customers receive a phishing email «from your company», or enquiries dry up.
The 13 indicators
- Hosting: who hosts the site, the server country and how fast it starts answering (good: under 0.8 s).
- Connection security: HTTPS, days left on the certificate and protective security headers.
- Email protection: SPF and DMARC records — without them anyone can send email in your domain’s name.
- Platform: what the site is built on (WordPress, Shopify, Wix…) and whether that version still gets security fixes.
- Outdated components: libraries and server software whose support has ended — the most common way in for attackers.
- Blacklists: whether Google marks the site as dangerous, which shows visitors a full-screen red warning.
- Known vulnerabilities: published security holes in the versions the site shows.
- Website age: domain registration, first appearance in the web archive and the latest year in the © line — an old copyright year is the first thing visitors notice.
- Accessibility: page language, image text, form labels, zoom on phones — required for many EU businesses under the European Accessibility Act.
- Privacy (GDPR): fonts and trackers that send visitor data to third parties without consent.
- Google search: noindex, sitemap, meta description and Google’s SEO score.
- AI readiness: whether ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity can read your site and recommend you.
- Mobile and speed: Google PageSpeed on a phone plus real Chrome visitor data.
How to read the score
Each indicator gives up to 10 points, out of 100 in total. 75–100 — in good shape; 45–74 — time to think about an update; 0–44 — at risk, and patching often costs more than a new site. Grey means there is no data (for example, versions are hidden) and does not count either way. Fix red items first, then yellow: a red platform, outdated components or known vulnerabilities are a security risk, not cosmetics.
Check it yourself
You can verify almost everything with free tools: SSL Labs and securityheaders.com for the certificate and headers, MXToolbox for SPF and DMARC, BuiltWith or Wappalyzer for the platform, Google PageSpeed Insights for speed, SEO and accessibility, the Wayback Machine for age. Expect an hour or two and some technical knowledge.
A one-minute check
We built the Website Checker — our own program that runs all 13 checks in about a minute and shows every step live. It reads public data only: no hacking, no login, no changes to your code. Free, with no sign-up, you get four things: a score out of 100, a colour and a one-line result for each item, and an infographic. Exactly what was found, why it matters and how to fix it is in the full report (€25). The first four results link to independent tools so you can confirm them.
The full report with plain-language explanations and step-by-step fixes for your developer costs €25 and is credited if you order an audit or a new website within 30 days. More on each indicator: hosting, connection security, website age. If your site serves EU customers, see also accessibility fines in Europe.