Chapter 03 · Site Report
Working through the Recommendations tab
The Recommendations tab turns audit findings into a prioritised fix list. Here is how the filters and areas work, what each fix contains, and who usually owns the change.
Updated Sep 19, 2026 · 5 min read
On this page
The Recommendations tab is the part of the Site Report you hand to whoever maintains the site. Its heading is Recommended fixes and the instruction under it is short: open a fix for evidence and steps. This guide explains how the list is built and how to read a single fix.
How the list is built
Serpio merges two kinds of findings. Deterministic checks on the sampled pages produce issues with a code, evidence, and a recommended change. The written analysis of each area adds its own recommendations in sentence form. Duplicates are removed by title, and the result is sorted by priority.
Four filter chips sit above the list: All, High priority, Medium, and Low priority, each with a count. Below the filters the items are grouped by area: Site health, Search engines, AI citation readiness, Local & regional, and Tech basics. If a filter has no matches you see No matches and a nudge to try another filter.
- High priority
- Findings that affect most or all pages: no sitemap, canonical tags missing on more than half the sample, pages without a primary heading, no structured data.
- Medium
- Findings that weaken individual pages or trust signals: duplicate titles or descriptions, a missing Content Security Policy header.
- Low priority
- Optional polish that only matters once the basics are in place, such as FAQ markup or an
llms.txtfile.
What a fix contains
- 1
Open the row
Click anywhere on the row or the View fix label. The row shows a Start here tag when it is the single highest-impact item on the Overview tab.
- 2
Read the plain-English explanation
The first paragraph says what the thing is and why a crawler or assistant cares. It is written for a founder, not an SEO.
- 3
Check Recommended change and Audit finding
Recommended change is the one-line action. Audit finding preserves the original wording plus the evidence, for example how many of the sampled pages had a canonical tag.
- 4
Follow How to fix it
A short numbered procedure written for whoever owns your templates or CMS. Below it are links to the relevant official documentation, usually Google Search Central or MDN.
- 5
Collapse it
Hide fix closes the row. Nothing is saved or ticked off. The list is a view of the last analysis.
Common findings, translated
Serpio rewrites the most common audit codes into plain titles so the list reads as actions rather than error messages. The original finding is always kept inside the row.
| What you see | Code | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Add a clear heading to each page | missing_h1 | Fewer than 80 percent of sampled pages had a visible H1, or the homepage had none. |
| Give each page a unique title | duplicate_titles | Two or more sampled pages share the same document title. |
| Write unique page descriptions | duplicate_metas | Two or more sampled pages share the same meta description. |
| Help search engines find your pages | missing_sitemap | No sitemap was found via robots.txt, /sitemap.xml, or /sitemap_index.xml. |
| Choose the preferred URL for each page | missing_canonical | Fewer than half of sampled pages declare a canonical URL. |
| Add structured data to describe your site | no_schema | No JSON-LD or schema.org markup was found on the sampled pages. |
| Weak security header posture (no CSP detected) | weak_security_headers | The homepage response had no Content-Security-Policy header. The evidence line also reports HSTS and the letter grade. |
| No FAQ/HowTo answer structures detected | no_faq_schema | Neither FAQPage nor HowTo markup was found on the homepage. |
| No llms.txt found | no_llms_txt | A request to /llms.txt did not return a successful text response. See What llms.txt is and how to publish one. |
Who usually owns the fix
Each deterministic finding carries an owner hint, visible as the Owner line when you expand the same item in Audit details. It is a suggestion about where the change lives, not a rule.
| Finding | Usual owner | Where the change lives |
|---|---|---|
| Sitemap, canonical tags, structured data, security headers | Engineering | Shared layout, framework config, hosting or CDN headers. |
| Headings, titles, meta descriptions | Content, with SEO input | CMS fields and page templates. |
| FAQ content and markup | Content, with engineering for the JSON-LD | Help or FAQ pages that already show the answers. |
| llms.txt | Engineering or content | A static file at the site root. |
A sensible order of work
- 1
Do the Start here item
It is usually the sitemap or canonical tags. Both change how much of your site the next analysis can see.
- 2
Finish the other site-wide items
Structured data and security headers are set once in a shared layout or at the edge. One deploy fixes every page.
- 3
Re-analyze once
Batch the fixes, deploy, then run Re-analyze from workspace settings. Re-running after each small change wastes time because the sample is small.
- 4
Then work page by page
Duplicate titles and descriptions are content edits. Do them in the CMS after the template work is finished.
Common questions
Can I mark a recommendation as done?
No. The list is recomputed from scratch on every analysis. Deploy the fix, then use **Re-analyze** in workspace settings. If the check passes on the new sample, the item disappears.
Why are there Low priority items in an area rated Good?
Recommendations that come from an area's written analysis inherit that area's health. A Good area produces Low priority polish items. Findings with hard evidence, such as a missing sitemap, keep their own priority regardless of the area.
Why does a finding say in sampled pages rather than across the site?
Fewer than three pages were sampled, so Serpio limits its claim to what it saw. Publishing a sitemap gives the next analysis more to work with.
Related guides
Reading your Site Report
The Site Report is Serpio's audit of a sample of your pages. Here is how to open it, what the two scores mean, and what each card on the Overview tab is for.
Read guideAudit details, section by section
The Audit details tab shows the evidence behind your scores. Here is what each of the five sections reports, how the health badges are set, and where the data comes from.
Read guideWhat llms.txt is and how to publish one
llms.txt is a plain-text file at /llms.txt that tells AI crawlers what your site is and which pages matter. Why Serpio checks for it, a minimal example, and how to publish and verify it.
Read guide