How we prioritize issues
Every issue PageCanary finds gets one of five priorities, by what it does to the people using your site. The priority decides whether you get an email about it, and how soon.
| Priority | What it means | How you hear about it |
|---|---|---|
| Critical | People can't use the main path of your site. | Re-checked within minutes, then emailed straight away. A reminder every day while it's still happening, up to 5. |
| High | It gets in the way of a good experience, or search engines can't find your pages. | Emailed once a second check confirms it, usually the next day. A reminder every 3 days while it's still happening, up to 5. |
| Medium | Annoying: it interrupts what someone is doing, but they can carry on. | In your weekly summary email. |
| Low | Noticeable, but easy to ignore. | On your site's page. |
| Nice to have | Most visitors won't notice it, but fixing it helps. | On your site's page, folded away. Never emailed. |
After 5 reminders an issue stays in your weekly summary until it's fixed or you dismiss it, so a problem you've decided to live with doesn't keep emailing you.
Critical
People can't do the main thing they came to do.
- The site is down, unreachable or stuck in a redirect loop
- The security certificate has expired or is invalid, so browsers block the site
- The domain has expired
- Your critical flow is broken: the contact form, booking, checkout or signup we walk every week
- The homepage or a key page (contact, booking, pricing, checkout, ordering) fails, shows an error or is blank
- A form on the homepage or a key page sends to a page that doesn't exist, so messages are lost
High
Something gets in the way, or people can't find you.
- A page linked from your menu or footer fails or shows an error
- A broken link in your menu or footer (linked from several pages)
- One of your test plans fails
- A form that sends to the wrong place, or isn't secure
- The phone menu doesn't open (when our check shows it; when we can't be sure, it's medium)
- Images, videos, embeds or maps that don't load on the homepage or a key page
- A page that never finishes loading
- The www or non-www version of your address doesn't work
- The email address on your site can't receive mail
- Search engines are blocked: robots.txt blocks the whole site, a key or menu page is set to noindex, or a page's canonical tag points somewhere else
- The certificate or domain expires within 7 days, or today
Medium
Annoying, but people can carry on.
- A broken link in a page's text, or a link to another site that no longer works
- Links that go nowhere, back to the homepage, or to a staging site
- A page outside your key pages that fails
- Broken images and media outside your key pages
- Slow pages
- A page wider than a phone screen, or phone numbers you can't tap to call
- Placeholder text, expired offers or empty listings left on the site
- Files blocked for loading insecurely
- The certificate or domain expires within 30 days
Low
Noticeable, but easy to ignore.
- An old copyright year in the footer
- A page with no title (the browser tab shows its address)
- A missing link preview image when the page is shared
- Visiting the http:// address doesn't move people to https://
- An embed that's broken but hidden until someone opens it
Nice to have
Most visitors won't notice these.
- Script errors that only show in the browser's console
- An analytics script that isn't loading
- Pages that are heavier than they need to be
- A page outside your key pages set to noindex
- The certificate or domain expires in more than 30 days
Key pages
Some problems are more serious on your key pages: the homepage, and pages people come to do business, like contact, booking, appointments, pricing, plans, checkout, cart, ordering, quotes and signup. Blog posts, news and help articles aren't key pages, even when they're about pricing.
Problems found by our AI page review are rated on the same five levels.