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Website Health Check

Last updated March 2026

A website health check is a structured assessment of how your site performs across the areas that affect your business: loading speed, search visibility, accessibility, legal compliance, and security. Most website problems build up gradually. Pages get slower as content grows, plugins accumulate security gaps, and regulatory requirements change without anyone updating the site to match. A health check surfaces these hidden issues before they cost you traffic, customers, or fines.

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Why websites degrade without anyone noticing

Websites are not static. They change with every plugin update, every new piece of content, every third-party script added for analytics or marketing. Each change is small, but they compound.

A site that loaded quickly when it launched might now be noticeably slower because of unoptimized images and accumulated JavaScript. A cookie banner that was compliant when installed might no longer meet current requirements after IMY updated its enforcement guidance in April 2025. An accessibility issue that affected one page might now appear across dozens as content was built from the same template.

The business impact is direct. Page speed affects conversion rates measurably: slower pages mean fewer visitors complete a purchase, fill out a form, or get in touch. Only 48% of mobile websites currently pass Google's Core Web Vitals thresholds, and those thresholds are a confirmed search ranking signal. A site that fails them is both slower to use and harder to find.

Signs your website needs attention

Some problems are obvious: your site goes down, a page shows an error, or Google Search Console flags an issue. But most website health problems are invisible without a deliberate check:

  • Pages load slowly on mobile, but you don't notice because you check your site on a fast desktop connection in the office
  • Search traffic is declining and you assume it's seasonal, when a technical SEO issue (a misconfigured robots.txt, missing sitemap, or broken structured data) is preventing Google from indexing new content
  • Visitors aren't converting and you blame the offer, when the checkout is too slow on mobile or a contact form has no associated labels for screen readers
  • Your cookie banner looks fine but tracking scripts are firing before visitors consent, which constitutes a GDPR violation under ePrivacy rules

These issues do not trigger alarms. They quietly reduce your traffic, your conversion rate, and your compliance posture over time.

What a health check reveals

A thorough website health check covers six areas. Each corresponds to a different risk for your business.

Speed and performance reveals whether visitors are getting a fast, responsive experience. Slow sites lose visitors directly and rank lower in search results, since Google uses Core Web Vitals as a ranking signal.

Search engine optimization reveals whether Google can find, crawl, and understand your content. Missing sitemaps, broken structured data, or incorrect meta tags can keep your pages out of search results entirely.

Accessibility reveals whether your site works for the estimated 16% of the global population living with a disability. Since June 2025, the EU Accessibility Act requires WCAG 2.1 AA compliance for covered digital services. In Sweden, PTS is actively auditing e-commerce websites.

Trust and compliance reveals whether your privacy setup meets GDPR and ePrivacy requirements: cookie consent, pre-consent tracking behavior, privacy policy presence, and business identification. IMY received a record 12,276 breach notifications in 2025, nearly double the previous year.

Security reveals whether your server is properly configured to protect visitors. Missing security headers, exposed server versions, and weak TLS configurations are common, fixable, and detectable in an automated check.

Website quality reveals whether your site is built and maintained properly: broken links, HTML validation, heading structure, responsive design, and third-party script load.

The mobile blind spot

Most business owners check their website from a desktop computer on a fast connection. Their visitors increasingly do not.

Over 60% of web traffic globally comes from mobile devices. Mobile pages are significantly slower than their desktop equivalents, and mobile conversion rates average roughly half the desktop rate across industries. The gap is not about screen size. It is about loading speed, interaction responsiveness, and layout stability on less powerful devices with variable network connections.

A health check that only tests desktop misses the experience most of your visitors actually have. Our scan tests both desktop and mobile viewports to surface issues that only appear on smaller screens.

Check your website's health

The scan runs in about 20 seconds and covers all six areas. You get a 0-100 score for each category, specific findings with plain-language explanations, and actionable guidance on what to fix first.

Run a free website health check

For a detailed breakdown of what each check does, see how the scan works. For a manual compliance checklist, see the website compliance checklist.

Sources

Website Health Check | Vivotiv