HTML Suggestions

SEO can be complex, yet the basics of on-site technical SEO are not. The lowest hanging fruits can be cherrypicked by working on title and meta description tags.
HTML Suggestions provides a rich, up-to-date, detailed and actionable snapshot of a site potential weak points in terms of HTML title and meta-description tags.

Every public page, indexable by the search engines, should have a unique HTML title tag stating the page mission.
It will be often used by search engines as text of the result link in their SERP, so should be captivating to attract clicks.
The HTML title tag has relatively speaking a high weight in terms of SEO value, so other than making it a concise and descriptive line, you should include in it the focus keyword of the web page, or an alias.
An example of the tag in the HTML syntax is:

<title>A descriptive, concise, captivating and focused text</title>

The other actor, the meta description tag, is also important.
Not a visible element of the web page, and not used for ranking - at least not by Google - it is often used by search engines as text for the text snippet below the result link in their SERP. Thus, it should be well crafted to maximize the CTR (Click-through Rate, or probability of click).
An example of the tag in the HTML syntax is:

<meta name="description" content="A captivating and more descriptive text" />

More often than not you will not code titles and descriptions directly in your HTML source, you will edit them using a CMS (Content Management System). For example in WP, while it does not natively permit to edit them, there are several SEO plugins to let you do it.

Summary

The Summary tab sheet give you an overall perspective of the reports available in HTML Suggestions.
You can quickly select it anytime, even when not it is not visible, by clicking on the Show Summary link.

Description

The descriptive name of the report. The text is an active link that once clicked will select the tab sheet containing the related report.

Pages

The number of pages affected by the issue detected by the report, i.e. the number of pages listed in the report.

Tot Pages

The total number of pages taken into account when elaborating the reports. This number is the same for all the listed reports.

Percentage

The percentage of pages detected by the specific report, computed as the ratio between the previous two values.

Keep in mind that same reports make binary decisions to decide whether to catalog a page as affected or not by an issue, using a fixed (configurable) threshold and seeing whether the specific measured dimension exceeds it or not.
In such cases the percentage says nothing about how the dimension is distributed. Take for example the cool report "Truncated title tags": it will tell you - say - all the titles exceeding 592 pixel, and from their number you have a percentage. But how many are just a little above the threshold, so that truncation doesn't really impair reading them? And how many badly exceed the limit?
To give you a much better idea of the distribution, every report which uses a threshold to be computed comes with a dedicated Histogram view. You can visualize it in the bottom pane.

Pie chart icon

A mini pie chart visually reporting two important information:

• The percentage shown in the previous column, related to the colored pie slice.
• The alert level of the issue investigated by the report. It is reported by the color of the slice:
  • Red: the issue investigated has to be considered an Error.
  • Yellow: the issue investigated has to be considered a Warning.
    Please notice that a warning is not a "light error", but something that at this stage the program cannot determine if it is a potential error or something wanted.
  • Azure: the report is just Informational.

As previously said for the Percentage column, reports which use a threshold to be computed are better evaluated by looking also at the Histogram bottom pane to understand how the measured dimension is distributed.

Items break-down table

This table gives you an overview of all pages - computed and discarded - in the evaluated crawl session.

Items break-down graph

The 3D pie chart displays visually the content of the table above it. Like all 3D graphs in Visual SEO Studio, the chart can be zoomed, rotated, copied and saved at pleasure.

Export buttons

Reports in HTML Suggestions can all be exported.
In the upper-right corner of each report tab sheet you can find easy to spot export buttons:

• Permits to open the listed pages in Tabular View as a subset of the whole crawl session (and from there can also export them to Excel/CSV).
• Permits to export the content of the shown columns to an Excel document.
  This option is available only when the view in the tab sheet is a table (and it is also available from the table context menu).
• Permits to export the content of the shown columns to a CSV file.
  This option is available only when the view in the tab sheet is a table (and it is also available from the table context menu).

Context menu

Every report in HTML Suggestions provides a context menu you can trigger by right clicking with the mouse on a page row:

• Copy URL
  Copies in the clipboard memory the URL of the selected resource.
• Browse URL
  Navigates with the default browser the URL of the selected resource.

Pages missing title tag

Entry type: Error

One of the most basic SEO rules is that each page should have a (unique) title tag.
Indexable pages missing the tag, or with an empty title tag, are thus detected as errors.
Search engines when no title is found usually try to show in the SERP in its place the content of the first meaningful h1 found, or an arbitrary extract from the page text. Rarely something optimal.

How can you fix the issue on the reported pages:
When this report lists pages, they should be fixed by adding to each of them a unique title tag.
Also spend some time to consider whether the page should exist or be indexable.

Duplicate title tags (canonical)

Entry type: Error

One of the most basic SEO rules is that each page should have a unique title tag.
This report groups by page title all pages detected as a duplicate title.
It takes into account only canonical pages (i.e. pages where the "canonical link tag", if present, points to the very same page URL, or is missing altogether), so entries found in this report should be considered errors.

How can you fix the issue on the reported pages:

• It is possible that one of the URLs grouped under the duplicate title is the one of the page entitled to keep it; we will refer to this as the "canonical" URL.
  All others should be taken care of:
• If the page using the same title is a logical duplicate of the canonical page, i.e. if it is the same page reachable by a different URL (a common case for example in e-commerce sites with "faceted" navigation), it should be "canonicalized" by adding to it a "canonical link tag" pointing to the canonical page.
• If the page using the same title is a separate page, you should rewrite a unique title for it, better describing what the page is about.
  Notice that if you can't find a title to better describe how this page is different from the one you want to keep the original title, you should also consider if the page should really exist.

Duplicate title tags

Entry type: Warning

This is almost the same report as the "Duplicate title tags (canonical)" report, but also includes duplicates found among non-canonical pages (i.e. pages "canonicalized" with a canonical link tag not pointing to the page itself).
Since it includes also non-canonical pages, entries found in this report should be considered as warnings, which are not light errors, but rather something that could be wrong or correct, and you have better have a look to decide.
The ideal situation is to find under each duplicate title group only one page with a self referring canonical link tag (or no canonical link) - the canonical page - and all other pages being logical copies of the canonical page, canonicalized with a canonical link tag pointing to it.

The report is provided to permit you checking whether page canonicalization were set correctly. You can find even more in-depth reports dedicated to page canonicalization in URL Suggestions.

Pages missing meta description tag

Entry type: Error

One of the most basic SEO rules is that each page should have a (unique) meta description tag.
Indexable pages missing the tag, or with an empty meta description tag, are thus detected as errors.
Search engines when no meta description is provided usually try to show in the SERP in its place an arbitrary extract from the page text. Rarely something optimal.

How can you fix the issue on the reported pages:
When this report lists pages, they should be fixed by adding to each of them a unique meta description tag.
Also spend some time to consider whether the page should exist or be indexable.

Duplicate meta-description tags (canonical)

Entry type: Error

One of the most basic SEO rules is that each page should have a unique meta description tag.
This report groups by page meta-description all pages detected as a duplicate meta-description.
It takes into account only canonical pages (i.e. pages where the "canonical link tag", if present, points to the very same page URL, or is missing altogether), so entries found in this report should be considered errors.

How can you fix the issue on the reported pages:

• It is possible that one of the URLs grouped under the duplicate meta-description is the one entitled to keep it; we will refer to this as the "canonical" page.
  All others should be taken care of:
• If the page using the same meta-description is a logical duplicate of the canonical page, i.e. the same page reachable by a different URL (a common case for example in e-commerce sites with "faceted" navigation), it should be "canonicalized" by adding to it a "canonical link tag" pointing to the canonical page.
• If the page using the same meta-description is a separate page, you should rewrite a unique meta-description for it, better describing what the page is about.
  Notice that if you can't find a meta-description to better describe how this page is different from the one you want to keep the original meta-description, you should also consider if the page should really exist.

Duplicate meta-description tags

Entry type: Warning

This is almost the same report as the "Duplicate meta-description tags (canonical)" report, but also includes duplicates found among non-canonical pages (i.e. pages "canonicalized" with a canonical link tag not pointing to the page itself).
Since it includes also non-canonical pages, entries found in this report should be considered as warnings, which are not light errors, but rather something that could be wrong or correct, and you have better have a look to decide.
The ideal situation is to find under each duplicate meta-description group only one page with a self referring canonical link tag (or no canonical link) - the canonical page - and all other pages being logical copies of the canonical page, canonicalized with a canonical link tag pointing to it.

The report is provided to permit you checking whether page canonicalization were set correctly. You can find even more in-depth reports dedicated to page canonicalization in URL Suggestions.

Pages missing H1 text

Entry type: Error

A well-accepted basic SEO rule is that each page should have a (single, unique) H1 tag.
Indexable pages missing the tag, or with an empty H1 tag, are thus detected as errors.
While not strictly mandatory, the H1 heading is a page element visible to the user (contrary to the title tag), and should be used to let the visitor at first glance understand what is the page is all about.

How can you fix the issue on the reported pages:
When this report lists pages, they should be fixed by adding to each of them a unique H1 tag.
Also spend some time to consider whether the page should exist or be indexable.

Multiple H1 tags

Entry type: Warning

A well-accepted basic SEO rule is that each page should have a single (and unique) H1 tag.
Indexable pages with more than one H1 tag are thus detected as errors.

Please notice that the "only one H1 tag" is not a strict rule, a page with multiple H1s is a perfectly valid HTML document (even before HTML5), this is just a well-accept SEO convention with some good basis:
The H1 heading is a page element visible to the user (contrary to the title tag), and should be used to let the visitor at first glance understand what is the page is all about.

While as said multiple H1s are not incorrect in terms of HTML syntax, in our experience when a page has multiple H1s most of the time they are not used to describe a semantic hierarchy as they should, but are more used for formatting reasons. Web developers should rely on CSS styling for that.
Some WP theme we noticed have the bad habit to also wrap the site logo within a H1 tag, and also use it for formatting other boilerplate elements.
For these reasons, we provided this report to quickly detect pages with multiple H1 tags. The report has a dedicated Count column detailing how many H1 tags are in the page.

How can you fix the issue on the reported pages:
When this report lists pages, you should check with the H1-H6 bottom panel what the H1 headings are.

• If the exceeding H1s are boilerplate elements in the page template, you should have the template fixed to avoid using H1 tags for styling.
• If the exceeding H1 tags are proper headings within the actual page content, you should consider down-scaling them to H2 tags (and other headings accordingly), in order to have only one H1 tag dedicated to describe the page mission.

Duplicate first H1 text (canonical)

Entry type: Error

A well-accepted basic SEO rule is that each page should have a single, unique H1 tag.
This report groups by page H1 (the first found in the page) all pages detected as a duplicate first-H1.
It takes into account only canonical pages (i.e. pages where the "canonical link tag", if present, points to the very same page URL, or is missing altogether), so entries found in this report should be considered errors.

How can you fix the issue on the reported pages:

• It is possible that one of the URLs grouped under the duplicate H1 heading is the one entitled to keep it; we will refer to this as the "canonical" page.
  All others should be taken care of:
• If the page using the same H1 heading is a logical duplicate of the canonical page, i.e. the same page reachable by a different URL (a common case for example in e-commerce sites with "faceted" navigation), it should be "canonicalized" by adding to it a "canonical link tag" pointing to the canonical page.
• If the page using the same H1 heading is a separate page, you should rewrite a unique H1 heading for it, better describing what the page is about.
  Notice that if you can't find a H1 heading to better describe how this page is different from the one you want to keep the original H1 heading, you should also consider if the page should really exist.

Duplicate first H1 text

Entry type: Warning

This is almost the same report as the "Duplicate first H1 text (canonical)" report, but also includes duplicates found among non-canonical pages (i.e. pages "canonicalized" with a canonical link tag not pointing to the page itself).
Since it includes also non-canonical pages, entries found in this report should be considered as warnings, which are not light errors, but rather something that could be wrong or correct, and you have better have a look to decide.
The ideal situation is to find under each duplicate H1 heading group only one page with a self referring canonical link tag (or no canonical link) - the canonical page - and all other pages being logical copies of the canonical page, canonicalized with a canonical link tag pointing to it.

The report is provided to permit you checking whether page canonicalization were set correctly. You can find even more in-depth reports dedicated to page canonicalization in URL Suggestions.

Truncated title tags

Entry type: Warning

When Google uses your page title in the SERP as text for the result link, it truncates with an ellipsis (…) sign if it doesn't fit the allotted horizontal space.

Sometimes it is not a big deal, because the truncated part could be just the brand part of the page title you do not care much about; sometimes though it could be impairing your CTR (Click-through Rate, i.e. the probability of the click) because the search engine user is not seeing a meaningful part of the title that could attract the click.

Allotted horizontal space is expressed in pixel, so since the used typographic font is not mono-spaced, texts with the same length in characters could fit or exceed it (imagine a text mainly made of "m" letters against one mainly made of "i" letters).
This report can detect with good precision which indexable pages will have their title tag content truncated in the SERP, by computing for each page title its length in pixel. We are proud to affirm that Visual SEO Studio has been the first SEO tool ever to compute pixel based lengths and provide a list of truncated titles!

Truncation depends on the device used. By default Visual SEO Studio computes truncation points for desktop SERP.
Used threshold, at the time this guide was written, is "Wider then 592 pixels". Like many others, it can be customized in the program Options, reachable via the program main menu Tools -> Preferences... entry.
Over time with changes in the SEO world, we update default threshold to keep you up-to-date with the ever evolving market.

How can you fix the issue on the reported pages:
Use the SERP preview bottom panel to check if the truncation is really something worth worrying about. If it is, rewrite the page title tag text in a more compact - yet still descriptive - way.

Truncated description tags

Entry type: Warning

When Google uses your page meta description in the SERP as text for the text snippet shown below the result link, it truncates with an ellipsis (…) sign if it doesn't fit the allotted space.

Sometimes it is not a big deal; sometimes though it could be impairing your CTR (click-through rate, i.e. the probability of the click) because the search engine user is not seeing a meaningful part of the text that could attract the click.

Like in the title tag case, allotted space space is expressed in pixel, so since the used typographic font is not mono-spaced, texts with the same length in characters could fit or exceed it (imagine a text made prominently of "m" letters against one made prominently of "i" letters).
This report can detect with good approximation which indexable pages will have their meta description tag content truncated in the SERP, by computing for each page meta description its size in pixel when written in multiple lines. We are proud to affirm that Visual SEO Studio has been the first SEO tool ever to compute pixel based lengths and provide a list of truncated meta descriptions!

Truncation depends on the device used. By default Visual SEO Studio computes truncation points for desktop SERP.
Used threshold, at the time this guide was written, is "With more than 2 lines".
Over time with changes in the SEO world, we update default threshold to keep you up-to-date with the ever evolving market.

How can you fix the issue on the reported pages:
Use the SERP preview bottom panel to check if the truncation is really something worth worrying about. If it is, rewrite the page meta description tag text in a more compact - yet still descriptive - way.

Short title tags

Entry type: Warning

This report groups by page title all pages detected with a short title text.

It provides an equivalent function to the old - now phased out - "Short title tags" report which was available in older versions of Google Search Console. Google never detailed how they determined whether a title was too short; our report uses a completely arbitrary character-based length function with an arbitrary threshold, thought a largely accepted criterion in the SEO industry.

Short titles are often caused by temporary placeholder texts left there; the report is useful to spot them with ease.

Used threshold, at the time this guide was written, is "Shorter than 30 chars". Like many others, it can be customized in the program Options, reachable via the program main menu Tools -> Preferences... entry.
Over time with changes in the SEO world, we update default threshold to keep you up-to-date with the ever evolving market.

How can you fix the issue on the reported pages:
Check if the title shortness is really something worth worrying about. If it is, rewrite the page title tag to better describe the page mission in a unique and concise way.

Long title tags

Entry type: Warning

This report groups by page title all indexable pages having title tag text longer than an arbitrary number of characters.

We will never stop reminding the SEO industry that what causes SERP truncation is exceeding a text length computed in pixels, not in characters (we are proud to affirm that Visual SEO Studio has been the first SEO tool ever to compute pixel based lengths and provide a list of truncated titles), nevertheless SEO professionals and agencies still often are anchored to internal policies over char-based title lengths, and need tools to enforce them.

Used threshold, at the time this guide was written, is "Longer than 70 chars". Like many others, it can be customized in the program Options, reachable via the program main menu Tools -> Preferences... entry.
Over time with changes in the SEO world, we update default threshold to keep you up-to-date with the ever evolving market.

How can you fix the issue on the reported pages:
Use the SERP preview bottom panel to check if the page title is actually truncated, and if truncation is really something worth worrying about. If it is, rewrite the page title tag text in a more compact - yet still descriptive - way.

We recommend ignoring this report and use the more sensible "Truncated title tags" which correctly computes text size in pixels.

Short meta-description tags

Entry type: Warning

This report groups by meta description all pages detected with a meta descriptions text.
It is the homologous of similar report dedicated to short page titles.

Short meta descriptions are often caused by temporary placeholder texts left there; the report is useful to spot them with ease.

Used threshold, at the time this guide was written, is "Shorter than 50 chars". Like many others, it can be customized in the program Options, reachable via the program main menu Tools -> Preferences... entry.
Over time with changes in the SEO world, we update default threshold to keep you up-to-date with the ever evolving market.

How can you fix the issue on the reported pages:
Check if the meta description shortness is really something worth worrying about. If it is, rewrite the page meta description tag to better describe the page in a way that could attract users' clicks.

Long meta-description tags

Entry type: Warning

This report groups by meta description all indexable pages having meta description tag text longer than an arbitrary number of characters.

We will never stop reminding the SEO industry that what causes SERP truncation is exceeding a text length computed in pixels, not in characters (we are proud to affirm that Visual SEO Studio has been the first SEO tool ever to compute pixel based lengths and provide a list of truncated titles), nevertheless SEO professionals and agencies still often are anchored to internal policies over char-based title lengths, and need tools to enforce them.

Used threshold, at the time this guide was written, is "Longer than 150 chars". Like many others, it can be customized in the program Options, reachable via the program main menu Tools -> Preferences... entry.
Over time with changes in the SEO world, we update default threshold to keep you up-to-date with the ever evolving market.

How can you fix the issue on the reported pages:
Use the SERP preview bottom panel to check if the page meta-description is actually truncated, and if truncation is really something worth worrying about. If it is, rewrite the page meta description tag text in a more compact - yet still descriptive - way.

We recommend ignoring this report and use the more sensible "Truncated description tags" which correctly computes text size in pixels.

Non-informative title tags

Entry type: Error

We see far too often pages with neglected title tags, where the text is a placeholder provided by the used CMS.
Texts like "Insert Page Title Here" or similar.

This report recognizes many default title placeholder text in several languages.

How can you fix the issue on the reported pages:
Rewrite the page title tag text in a unique, concise and descriptive way.

Titles with too many words

Entry type: Warning

Apparently Google indexes as part of the title only the first 12 words found in the title tag, and the remaining part as normal text.
For an in-depth analysis please read Continuare a smontare Google: un’altra scoperta SEO (in Italian) by Enrico Altavilla, who to the best of my knowledge has to be credited for discovering the 12-words limit, an also How Title tag reverse engineering led me to a new discovery by Giuseppe Pastore, who further investigated the issue.

Used threshold, at the time this guide was written, is "With more than 12 words". Like many others, it can be customized in the program Options, reachable via the program main menu Tools -> Preferences... entry.
Over time with changes in the SEO world, we update default threshold to keep you up-to-date with the ever evolving market.

How can you fix the issue on the reported pages:
Check the title to see if it really is something worth worrying about. If yes, rewrite the page title tag text so that at least the most meaningful part is within the first 12 words.