Glossary

The words SEOComet uses, in a sentence or two. Each links to the article that explains it.

Activity log: Who changed what in the account, on the Activity page: sites, checks, people, alerts and incidents. The owner and people who can edit all sites see it.; How SEOComet works
Alert: A message about an incident, sent to your channels when it opens, gets worse or is resolved, if your alert level covers it, and as a reminder while it stays open if reminders are on.; How SEOComet works
Alert level: Which incidents send alerts for the whole account: Critical only, Warnings and critical, or Everything.; Alert level and per-site alerts
Alerts sent: The latest alerts this incident sent to your channels, newest first, and whether each one went out. Personal site emails aren’t listed.; Incidents
All sites: Every site in the account, including ones added later.; Sharing sites and roles
Blank page minimum: A page with fewer characters of visible text than this counts as blank, which is a warning. A page that builds its text with JavaScript only counts once it had text and lost it. 0 turns the blank check off.; Uptime and the page check
Can edit: Can change site settings, checks and incidents, and who sees the site. On all sites, they also add and delete sites and manage alerts and the team. Billing stays with the owner.; Sharing sites and roles
Can view: Sees the sites, checks and incidents they have access to and changes nothing there. They can still get their own emails about a site.; Sharing sites and roles
Certificate expiry: A warning, then critical, as the certificate’s end date gets close. An expired, untrusted or mismatched certificate is always critical.; SSL certificates
Channel: Where alerts go: email addresses, a Slack channel or a signed webhook. Free sends by email only; Pro and Business add Slack and webhooks.; Alert channels
Check: One file, page or certificate SEOComet checks on a schedule, such as robots.txt, a sitemap, ads.txt, a page or the SSL certificate, and what it looks for there.; How SEOComet works
Check frequency: Your plan sets how often each kind of check runs, the same on every site: the homepage most often, then robots.txt, watched pages, sitemaps and the SSL certificate.; How often checks run
Check history: Every past run of a check and what it found, on the check’s History tab, kept for as long as your plan allows.; How SEOComet works
Child sitemaps: The sitemaps a sitemap index lists. SEOComet reads each of them too, up to a cap, and warns when one can’t be fetched or read.; Sitemap checks
Crawlers to watch: Crawlers you hear about when robots.txt newly blocks one from the whole site. Others already blocked on the first check count as on purpose, but blocking Googlebot or Bingbot is always critical.; robots.txt checks
Critical: Something is broken now, like a site that’s down or a robots.txt that blocks Google. Critical issues open incidents and send alerts at every alert level, unless the site’s alerts are off.; Severity and suggestions
Due now: Its time has come and it’s about to be queued. That usually takes under a minute.; How often checks run
Edit address: Points a check at a new address. Its history stays, but the next check starts fresh, with nothing compared to the old address.; Check settings and thresholds
Email me about this site: Your own emails about one site, at your own level, sent to your account address, even when the site’s alerts are off. Only you get them, and they don’t include reminders.; Alert level and per-site alerts
Escalation: An open incident got worse, like a warning that became critical. Your channels get a “Got worse” alert if your alert level covers the new severity and the incident isn’t muted.; Incidents
Evidence: The latest check that found the problem: when it ran, its HTTP status and response time, and for a robots.txt, ads.txt or app-ads.txt change, the lines that changed.; Incidents
Expected status: The HTTP status the page should end on after redirects: any 2xx, or a 4xx or 5xx, like 404 or 410 for a page you removed. 200 by default.; Uptime and the page check
Failures in a row: How many failed or slow checks in a row it takes before the page counts as down or slow, so one blip is ignored.; Uptime and the page check
Google updates: Alerts when Google starts or finishes a ranking update or reports a Search incident. You choose which kinds you hear about and where they go.; Google updates
Health: How a site’s checks are doing: how many are critical, warning or couldn’t check, or Healthy when none are. A new site shows Setting up and a paused one Paused.; How SEOComet works
Important paths: Paths you list, like /products/. It’s critical if robots.txt stops Google or all crawlers from crawling one.; robots.txt checks
Incident: One problem, tracked from the check that found it until it’s resolved: a check no longer finds it, someone marks it resolved or the check is paused. One open incident per kind of issue.; Incidents
Info: A note, like a changed robots.txt or a stale sitemap. The check still counts as healthy. It opens an incident too, but that sends alerts only on Everything.; Severity and suggestions
Invalid lines: Lines that don’t follow the ads.txt format, so buyers skip them.; ads.txt and app-ads.txt
Issue: Something a check found, with a severity. When the next check finds the same issue, it’s added to the incident already open, not reported as new.; How SEOComet works
Lines that must be present: Seller lines you list, usually from your ad partners. It’s critical if one goes missing from the file.; ads.txt and app-ads.txt
Mark resolved: Closes the incident now and sends the resolved alert. If the problem is still there, the next check opens a new incident.; Incidents
Mute: Stops reminders and escalation alerts for one incident, for an hour, for 24 hours or until it’s fixed. You still hear when it’s resolved.; Incidents
Needs attention: Running checks on running sites whose latest result is critical, warning or couldn’t check, worst first.; How SEOComet works
News sitemap freshness: Critical when the news sitemap’s newest article is older than the hours you set, which usually means new stories aren’t reaching it.; Google News sitemaps
Next check: When the check runs next: one interval after it was last picked up on schedule. Run now doesn’t change it, but a change of plan can.; How often checks run
Not found: The file has never been at this address. SEOComet keeps checking quietly, with no alerts, and checks it in full once it appears. Losing it after that alerts.; Missing files
Open, muted, resolved: Open: the problem is still there. Muted: still open, but quiet. Resolved: a check no longer found it, someone marked it resolved, or its check or site was paused.; Incidents
Other addresses: The other versions of your home page address, with or without www and https. Each should redirect in one step to where your home page ends up.; Home page redirects
Over 48 hours: Articles in the news sitemap published more than 48 hours ago. Google says to remove them or their news tags.; Google News sitemaps
Overdue: The check should have run by now and hasn’t. That’s usually a delay on SEOComet’s side, not a problem with your site.; How often checks run
Owner: Can do everything, billing included, and make other people owners. An account can have several. The primary owner is the only one who can hand that role on or delete the account.; Sharing sites and roles
Page check: What an uptime check also reads when the page answers with the 2xx you expect: noindex, canonical, title, description, H1, blank pages and any text you list.; Uptime and the page check
Pending invitation: Sent but not accepted yet. It expires after 7 days. Resending sends a fresh link for another 7 days, and the old link stops working.; Invitations
Per-site alerts: A site can have its own alert level and use only some channels, or turn its alerts off for every channel. Other sites keep the account’s settings.; Alert level and per-site alerts
Plan limits: The sites, watched pages per site, people, channel types, check speeds and history your plan allows. At a limit you can’t add more. After a downgrade, the newest watched pages past a limit pause.; Plans and limits
Reminder: A “Still open” alert every 4 hours while an incident stays open, if reminders are on and your alert level covers it. Muted incidents don’t remind.; Incidents
Run now: Queues the check straight away, outside its schedule. Its next scheduled run doesn’t move. You can only run so many checks a minute.; How often checks run
Selected sites: Only the sites picked for them, with no access to the team, alerts or billing.; Sharing sites and roles
Setting up: A new site while SEOComet looks for its robots.txt, sitemaps, ads.txt and app-ads.txt, then runs the first checks. The checks are added once that search is done.; Add your first site
Severity: How serious an issue is: critical, warning or info. Your alert level, or a site’s own level, decides which severities send alerts.; Severity and suggestions
Shared site: A site in someone else’s account that you’ve been given access to. It counts toward that account’s plan, not yours.; Sharing sites and roles
Signed webhook: An https address SEOComet posts each alert to, signed so your server can check it came from SEOComet.; Alert channels
Signing secret: The key each webhook request is signed with. It’s shown once, after you add the webhook or make a new secret.; Alert channels
Sites at risk: Running sites with a check that’s critical, warning or couldn’t check, worst first, with their open incidents.; How SEOComet works
Slow response: A response that takes longer than the limit you set. Enough slow checks in a row raise a warning.; Uptime and the page check
Stale sitemap: The newest lastmod in the sitemap, or across an index’s sitemaps, is older than the days you set. It’s only info, since a site that rarely changes can be fine. News sitemaps use their own freshness rule.; Sitemap checks
Suggestion: Worth tidying, but nothing is broken. A suggestion never opens an incident or sends an alert, and the check still passes.; Severity and suggestions
Summary email: A daily or weekly (Monday) email with open incidents, what resolved and uptime for your sites, sent at 08:00 your time. A quiet day sends no daily email. It’s off until you turn it on.; Summary email
Text the page must contain: Lines you list. It’s critical whenever one isn’t on the page. Not case-sensitive.; Uptime and the page check
Text the page must never contain: Lines you list, like an error message. It’s critical when one shows up on the page. Not case-sensitive.; Uptime and the page check
Uptime: Whether a page answers with the status you expect. After enough failed checks in a row, it counts as down, which is critical.; Uptime and the page check
Uptime (30 days): The share of the last 30 days’ checks that found the page up. A wrong status or no answer counts as down. It shows once there are 7 days of checks.; Uptime and the page check
URL drop: A warning when a sitemap lists fewer URLs than on the last complete check, by more than the percentage you set. A drop over twice that is critical. News sitemaps don’t get it.; Sitemap checks
Versions: SEOComet keeps each different copy of robots.txt, ads.txt and app-ads.txt it finds. Compare versions shows what changed between any two of them.; How SEOComet works
Warning: Worth a look soon, but not broken yet, like a slow page or a missing title. Alerts go out on Warnings and critical or Everything.; Severity and suggestions
Watch pages: Add many pages at once, as paths or full addresses. Each gets its own uptime check with the page check.; Watch pages
Watched pages: Pages besides the homepage that SEOComet checks for uptime and SEO changes. Your plan sets how many each site can have; paused ones still count. robots.txt, sitemaps, ads.txt, the homepage and SSL are always included.; Plans and limits