SEO report for www.barnsley.gov.uk
https://www.barnsley.gov.uk/ · checked Sun, 01 Nov 2026 20:25 GMT
Fix these first
- Question-led contentmedium
No headings phrased as questions.
Fix: Add headings that match real questions ("How much does…?") followed by a direct one- or two-sentence answer – an easy format for search and AI answers to quote.
- Freshness signalsmedium
No published/updated date found.
Fix: Show a 'last updated' date and add dateModified to your structured data.
- Tap-to-contactmedium
No tel: or mailto: links.
Fix: Add a tap-to-call or tap-to-email button so phone visitors can contact you instantly.
- Server response (TTFB)high
944 ms until the first response from our checker, including connection setup (Google rates TTFB good under 0.8 s, poor over 1.8 s).
Fix: Use page caching or a CDN (e.g. Cloudflare) so HTML is served from the edge.
- Word countmedium
285 words of main content (inside <main>).
Fix: Add genuinely useful content: key service pages usually need 400+ words to answer what customers ask.
- Heading structuremedium
18 headings for 285 words – a lot for the amount of text.
Fix: Use H2s for main sections and H3s inside them, without skipping levels.
- Text-to-code ratiolow
2% of the HTML is visible text.
Fix: Trim unused markup, inline scripts and builder bloat.
- llms.txtlow
No /llms.txt file. It's an optional, emerging convention – few AI tools are confirmed to read it yet, so this is low priority.
Fix: Optionally add /llms.txt: a short Markdown summary of who you are with links to your key pages.
Real-world speed Google PageSpeed
Loading Core Web Vitals from Google… this can take up to 30 seconds.
Authority & backlinks
Looking up which websites link to barnsley.gov.uk…
Indexing & crawling 100%
Can search engines reach, read and index this page?
- ✓
Status codecritical
The page returned HTTP 200.
- ✓
Indexablecritical
No noindex instruction – the page can appear in search.
- ✓
robots.txthigh
robots.txt found.
Googlebot is allowed to crawl this page.
- ✓
XML sitemaphigh
Sitemap found at https://www.barnsley.gov.uk/sitemap.xml with 1,942 URLs.
Declared in robots.txt.
This page is listed in it.
Most recent lastmod: 2026-10-31T00:10:55+00:00.
- ✓
Canonical URLhigh
Canonical: https://www.barnsley.gov.uk/
Points to this page (self-referencing).
- ✓
Redirectshigh
1 redirect before the page loaded.
https://barnsley.gov.uk/ → https://www.barnsley.gov.uk/
A single redirect to your preferred address is normal; just make sure your own links use the final address.
- ✓
www / non-wwwmedium
barnsley.gov.uk redirects to www.barnsley.gov.uk.
Search snippet & sharing 100%
How the page looks in Google results and when shared.
- ✓
Title tagcritical
“Barnsley – the place of possibilities”
About 311px of Google's ~580px desktop width.
- ✓
Meta descriptionhigh
120 characters, ~756px of ~990px.
Good length.
Google sometimes rewrites descriptions to match the search; a good one is still used most often.
- ✓
Faviconlow
Favicon linked (Google shows it next to results).
- ✓
Languagelow
lang="en"
Content quality 80%
Is there enough clear, useful text that matches what the page targets?
- !
Word countmedium
285 words of main content (inside <main>).
Google has no minimum word count – this is a rough guide to whether the page answers the question in full.
Fix: Add genuinely useful content: key service pages usually need 400+ words to answer what customers ask.
- ✓
Readabilitymedium
Flesch reading ease 61 (plain English), about 11 words per sentence.
- ✓
Topic focushigh
2 of 2 title keywords appear in the main content.
- ✓
H1 headingcritical
“Barnsley – the place of possibilities”
- !
Heading structuremedium
18 headings for 285 words – a lot for the amount of text.
Levels are in order.
Fix: Use H2s for main sections and H3s inside them, without skipping levels.
- ✗
Text-to-code ratiolow
2% of the HTML is visible text.
Fix: Trim unused markup, inline scripts and builder bloat.
AI search readiness 69%
Can ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews read, understand and cite this site?
- ✓
AI crawler accesshigh
Search and AI-search crawlers (Googlebot, Bingbot, OAI-SearchBot, Claude-SearchBot, PerplexityBot…) can read this page.
- ✓
Snippet controlshigh
No snippet restrictions – search and AI answers can quote this page.
- ✗
llms.txtlow
No /llms.txt file. It's an optional, emerging convention – few AI tools are confirmed to read it yet, so this is low priority.
Fix: Optionally add /llms.txt: a short Markdown summary of who you are with links to your key pages.
- ✗
Question-led contentmedium
No headings phrased as questions.
Fix: Add headings that match real questions ("How much does…?") followed by a direct one- or two-sentence answer – an easy format for search and AI answers to quote.
- ✓
Entity clarityhigh
Identified as: Organization.
5 official profile link(s) (sameAs).
- ✗
Freshness signalsmedium
No published/updated date found.
Fix: Show a 'last updated' date and add dateModified to your structured data.
- ✓
Trust pages (E-E-A-T)medium
Links found to all three: about, contact and privacy.
Structured data 100%
Machine-readable facts for rich results and AI.
- ✓
JSON-LD present & validhigh
1 JSON-LD block(s): Organization.
All blocks parse correctly.
- ✓
Required propertiesmedium
Key types include Google's required properties.
Recommended but missing: Organization.name, Organization.logo.
Links 100%
Internal linking, anchor text and broken links.
- ✓
Internal linkinghigh
102 internal and 5 external links.
- ✓
Anchor text qualitymedium
No link text points to two different pages.
- ✓
Broken links (sample)high
Checked 12 internal link(s).
No broken links found.
5 link(s) point to a redirect – link to the final address instead.
Performance 70%
Speed signals from the HTML and server. Real-user Core Web Vitals load below.
- !
Server response (TTFB)high
944 ms until the first response from our checker, including connection setup (Google rates TTFB good under 0.8 s, poor over 1.8 s).
Fix: Use page caching or a CDN (e.g. Cloudflare) so HTML is served from the edge.
- ✓
HTML sizemedium
121 kB of HTML.
- ✓
Compressionmedium
Compressed with br.
- ✓
Render-blocking resourceshigh
0 blocking script(s) and 1 stylesheet(s) in <head>.
- !
Scripts & third partiesmedium
16 script tag(s); files loaded from 2 other domain(s): analytics.silktide.com, oc-cdn-public-gbr.azureedge.net.
Fix: Remove unused tracking and widget scripts; every third party adds connection time.
- !
Imagesmedium
121 image(s).
2 without width/height – can cause layout shift (CLS).
85 image(s) after the first three aren't lazy-loaded.
1 use WebP/AVIF or responsive srcset.
Fix: Give every image width and height, lazy-load images below the fold (but not the main image) and serve WebP/AVIF.
- ✗
Cachinglow
No Cache-Control header.
Fix: Set Cache-Control so browsers and CDNs can reuse the page.
- i
HTTP/3low
Couldn't be confirmed from our server – the alt-svc header that advertises HTTP/3 isn't always visible to it. Your site is on Cloudflare, which offers HTTP/3 under Network settings.
Security 75%
Visitor safety signals that browsers and Google check.
- ✓
HTTPScritical
Secure HTTPS with no mixed content.
- ✓
HTTP → HTTPS redirecthigh
http:// redirects to https://.
- !
HSTSmedium
HSTS: max-age=2592000
max-age is under 6 months – browsers will forget it quickly.
Fix: Add Strict-Transport-Security: max-age=63072000; includeSubDomains.
- ✗
Security headerslow
Present: none.
Fix: Add X-Content-Type-Options, Referrer-Policy, Permissions-Policy and X-Frame-Options (or a CSP).
- ✗
Server fingerprintlow
X-Powered-By reveals “ASP.NET”.
Fix: Remove X-Powered-By so attackers can't see your software versions.
Mobile & accessibility 83%
Usable on phones and by everyone – Google indexes the mobile version.
- ✓
Mobile viewportcritical
viewport: width=device-width, initial-scale=1
- ✓
Image alt textmedium
All 121 images have alt text.
- ✓
Form labelsmedium
All 2 form fields are labelled.
- ✓
Link nameslow
Every link has a readable name.
- ✗
Tap-to-contactmedium
No tel: or mailto: links.
Fix: Add a tap-to-call or tap-to-email button so phone visitors can contact you instantly.
Local SEO not scored
This site doesn't look like a local business, so these checks are shown for information and not scored.
- i
LocalBusiness markuphigh
No LocalBusiness structured data.
- i
Contact details on pagemedium
No phone number found.
No postcode found (fine for service-area businesses).
- i
Map & directionslow
No map or directions link.