Ahrefs Health Score: What It Shows and How to Raise It in 30 Days
Digital Marketing
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You ran your website through Ahrefs Site Audit and got a number out of 100. Now you want to know what it means, whether Google cares, and what to fix first.
This guide is for business owners and marketing leads who are not developers. It explains how the Ahrefs Health Score is calculated, what it does not tell you, and gives a four-week plan you can follow yourself or hand to whoever looks after your website.
What the Ahrefs Health Score shows
The Health Score is the share of internal URLs on your site that Ahrefs crawled and found free of errors. Ahrefs takes the number of internal URLs without an error, divides it by the total number of internal URLs crawled, and multiplies by 100, as its Health Score help article explains.
A simple example: Ahrefs crawls 10 pages on your site and 2 of them have at least one error. Eight pages are clean, so your score is 80. One page with five errors counts the same as a page with one error, because the score counts pages, not problems.
Ahrefs groups the score into four bands:
Score | Ahrefs rating |
0–30 | Weak |
31–70 | Fair |
71–90 | Good |
91–100 | Excellent |
Only errors move the score
Site Audit sorts issues into three levels: errors (red), warnings (yellow) and notices (blue). Only errors lower the Health Score. Warnings and notices do not affect it at all, according to the same help article.
This matters when you plan your time. A long list of warnings can look alarming, but clearing them will not change the number. Some warnings are still worth fixing for other reasons, which we cover in week three.
What the score does not tell you
The Health Score is Ahrefs' own measure. It is not a Google metric and it is not a ranking factor. Google's guidance on third-party SEO tools says these tools "don't have access to our internal ranking data" and that some users misread their data as coming from Google.
So a score of 100 does not guarantee rankings, and a score of 75 does not mean Google is penalising you. What the score does well is point you to pages with real technical faults, such as broken links and pages that return errors. Those faults hurt visitors and waste the time search engines spend crawling your site.
Two more limits to keep in mind:
It only covers what Ahrefs crawled. If the crawl missed part of your site, or was blocked, the score describes only the pages it reached.
Turning an issue off is not fixing it. Ahrefs lets you turn off an issue for a project, which removes it from the report. The page is still the same for visitors and for Google.
For data that comes from Google itself, Google recommends Google Search Console. Use Ahrefs to find faults and Search Console to see how Google actually indexes and shows your pages.
A 30-day plan to raise your Ahrefs Health Score
Thirty days is enough for most small business sites to clear their errors, because a site with 20 to 200 pages usually has a handful of causes behind most of its issues. A larger site, or one with errors built into its theme or code, may need longer. The plan below works the same either way.
Week 1: Run a clean crawl and record a baseline
Set up the audit. If you do not pay for Ahrefs, its free Webmaster Tools plan includes Site Audit for websites you verify as yours. As of October 2026 it gives each verified project 5,000 crawl credits per month, and only HTML pages that return a working (200) status use credits.
Check the crawl reached your site properly. If the report shows many pages with 403 or 429 codes, your server or firewall probably blocked or slowed the crawler. Ahrefs' broken-link help article suggests whitelisting Ahrefs' IP addresses for 403 codes and lowering crawl speed for 429 codes, then crawling again.
Write down three numbers. Record the Health Score, the number of internal URLs crawled, and the number of URLs with errors. You will need these to judge progress, because the score can move when the number of crawled pages changes.
Sort the errors by how many URLs they affect. Open the issues report, filter to errors, and list each one with its URL count. This list is your work plan for week two.
Week 2: Fix the errors that affect the most pages
Start with the errors that touch the most URLs. On most sites, one fix in a shared element such as the menu, footer or a page template clears an error from every page that uses it. A single broken link in your footer can put an error on every page of the site.
The errors small business sites run into most often are broken pages and links to them. Ahrefs' 404 page help article recommends these fixes:
A link points to a page that no longer exists. Update the link to a live, relevant page, or remove it.
A deleted page still has links from other websites. Set up a 301 redirect to the closest relevant page, so visitors and the value of those links are not lost.
A page was removed on purpose and has no replacement. Leave it returning 404 (or 410 for permanently removed pages), and make sure your 404 page returns a real 404 status rather than a normal page.
Errors come from your server (5xx codes). Ask your developer or hosting provider to check the server, since this is not something you can fix in page content.
Most website builders, including WordPress, Wix and Framer, let you edit links and set up redirects without code. If an error comes from your theme or custom code, note it for your developer rather than trying a workaround.
Week 3: Re-crawl, compare, then look at warnings
Run a new crawl once the week-two fixes are live. Ahrefs lets you compare two crawls, so you can see which issues were fixed and which are new. Check the three numbers from week one again.
If the score went down, look at the crawled URL count first. A crawl that found more pages, or a change in how Ahrefs checks issues, can lower the score without you doing anything wrong. When Ahrefs added new page speed issues in 2021, it told users "don't be alarmed" by changes in their Health scores.
With errors under control, scan the warnings. They do not affect the score, but some affect people:
Missing or duplicate page titles and meta descriptions change how your pages appear in Google results, and so how many people click.
Slow pages and oversized images frustrate visitors on mobile data.
Redirect chains, where one redirect leads to another, slow pages down and are easy to tidy.
For a wider list of on-page basics, our SEO checklist for small sites covers what to check beyond the audit.
Week 4: Decide what to accept, then keep it healthy
Some issues are not worth fixing. An old campaign page that you intentionally removed, or a test page your developer keeps for staging, may be fine as it is. Turn an issue off only when you are sure it does not affect visitors, and note why so the next person understands.
Then put the score on a schedule so it stays healthy:
Schedule a crawl every month, and run one after any redesign, migration or large batch of new pages.
Check new errors within a week of each crawl, while the cause is still fresh.
When you delete or rename a page, set up the redirect at the same time.
Name one person who owns the report, even if someone else does the fixes.
If you are planning a new site, building these habits in from the start is easier than fixing them later. Our guide to building an SEO-friendly website explains what to ask for during the build.
Who should do the work
You can do much of week one and week two yourself if your site runs on a builder you already edit, such as Wix or Framer. Fixing links and adding redirects takes care, not technical training.
Bring in a developer when errors come from the server, the theme or custom code, or when a fix needs changes across hundreds of pages. Bring in an SEO specialist when the score is fine but traffic is not, because that usually means the problem is content, competition or links, not technical faults.
Be honest with yourself about the goal. Chasing the last few points to reach exactly 100 is rarely the best use of your time if your pages are fast, working and useful. Fixing the errors visitors would notice is the part that matters.
Frequently asked questions
Is the Ahrefs Health Score a Google ranking factor?
No, the Ahrefs Health Score is not a Google ranking factor. It is a measure Ahrefs calculates from its own crawl, and Google says third-party tools have no access to its internal ranking data. The score is still useful because the errors it counts, such as broken pages, can hurt visitors and waste crawling time.
Why did my Ahrefs health score go down after SEO work?
An Ahrefs Health Score usually drops after SEO work because the crawl found more pages or new errors. New pages, a higher crawl limit, or a change in how Ahrefs checks issues can all lower the score. Compare the number of URLs crawled and the list of new errors between the two crawls to find which one applies.
Can I check my site health in Ahrefs for free?
Yes, you can check your site health in Ahrefs for free on websites you verify as yours. The free Webmaster Tools plan includes Site Audit, with 5,000 crawl credits per verified project per month as of October 2026. Only working HTML pages use credits, so broken URLs and redirects do not count towards the limit.
What is a good Ahrefs site health score?
Ahrefs rates a Health Score of 91–100 as excellent and 71–90 as good. Scores of 31–70 are fair and 0–30 are weak. For a small business website, aim to clear every error that visitors would notice, such as broken pages and links, rather than chasing an exact 100.
Do warnings and notices lower the Ahrefs health score?
No, warnings and notices do not lower the Ahrefs Health Score. Only issues marked as errors count towards it. Some warnings are still worth fixing, such as missing page titles, duplicate meta descriptions and slow pages, because they affect how pages appear in search results and how visitors experience the site.
How much does it cost to have someone fix site audit errors?
The cost of fixing site audit errors depends on how many errors there are and where they come from. Broken links and redirects in a website builder are often quick to fix yourself. Errors in the server, theme or custom code need a developer, and ongoing SEO support from Digital Nova starts at HK$4,200 per month.
Get help with your site audit
Start today: run a crawl, write down your three baseline numbers, and list your errors by URL count. That list alone tells you whether this is a one-afternoon job or something to hand over.
If you would rather hand it over, Digital Nova's SEO services in Hong Kong include technical audits and fixes, with plans from HK$4,200 per month. If your audit is part of a wider marketing plan, our digital marketing team can look at it alongside your ads and content. We can run the project in Cantonese or English, so get in touch with us to talk it through.
