How scoring works
No black box: this page is the complete methodology behind the Ambarverde Score, generated from the same definitions the scanner runs.
The score
Every scan fetches your homepage, robots.txt and sitemap, then runs the checks listed below. Each check lands on one of three states: pass (full credit), needs work (half credit) or missing (no credit). Checks carry different weights, so a missing title tag costs more than a missing favicon. Each category scores 0 to 100 from its weighted checks, and your Ambarverde Score is the weighted average of the five categories.
Scoring is deterministic: the same site scores the same twice. That is deliberate, because it is what makes verified fixes, score history and regression alerts trustworthy. Server response time is measured as the median of three samples so a single slow round trip cannot move your score.
Category weights by site type
The weighting adapts to what your website is for: a blog lives or dies on content and search, an ecommerce site on trust and conversion.
| Site type | SEO Readiness | AI Visibility | User Experience | Technical Performance | Business Readiness |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Business | 25% | 20% | 20% | 20% | 15% |
| Blog | 30% | 25% | 15% | 20% | 10% |
| Ecommerce | 20% | 15% | 25% | 15% | 25% |
| SaaS | 20% | 25% | 20% | 20% | 15% |
| Portfolio | 20% | 15% | 30% | 25% | 10% |
| Other | 25% | 20% | 20% | 20% | 15% |
A small number of individual checks also adapt to site type: content depth expects more words from a blog and fewer from a portfolio, and social proof counts for more on ecommerce sites.
Every check we run
SEO Readiness
- Page title tag: Does the homepage have a descriptive title between 15 and 65 characters?
- Meta description: Is there a 50 to 160 character summary for search results?
- H1 heading: Is there exactly one clear H1 headline?
- Heading structure: Is content broken into sections with H2 subheadings?
- Internal linking: Does the homepage link to your key pages?
- Canonical tag: Does the page declare its official URL?
- XML sitemap: Is there a sitemap listing your pages for search engines?
- Robots.txt: Does robots.txt exist and allow crawling?
- Content depth: Is there enough visible text to rank? The threshold adapts to your site type.
- Noindex tag: Is the page accidentally hidden from search engines? Only flagged when found.
AI Visibility
- Structured data: Is there valid JSON-LD machines can read directly?
- Business entity information: Can AI systems identify who is behind the site via Organization or Person schema?
- Question and answer content: Is there FAQ content, ideally with FAQPage schema, that AI can quote?
- Open Graph metadata: Are sharing previews defined with og:title and og:description?
- Semantic HTML structure: Does the page use landmark elements like main, nav, header and footer?
- Clear description of what you do: Could an AI reading only this page explain your business in one sentence?
User Experience
- Mobile viewport: Does the page scale properly on phones?
- Navigation: Is there a clear navigation with enough links to orient visitors?
- Call to action: Is there an obvious next step like buy, book or contact?
- Page language: Is the page language declared for screen readers and translators?
- Favicon: Is there a browser tab icon?
- Readability: Are sentences short enough to scan, under about 25 words on average?
Technical Performance
- Server response time: Does the server answer within 800 ms? Measured as a median of three samples.
- Page size: Is the homepage HTML under 300 KB?
- Image alt text: Do images have descriptions for screen readers and search engines?
- Image lazy loading: Do below-the-fold images load only when needed?
- HTTPS: Is the site served over a secure connection?
- JavaScript weight: Is the page free of excessive external scripts?
Business Readiness
- About page: Is there an About page saying who is behind the site?
- Contact information: Can visitors reach you via a contact page, email or phone?
- Privacy policy: Is there a privacy policy?
- Terms of service: Are there terms of service?
- Social proof: Are there testimonials, reviews or client mentions? Weighted higher for ecommerce.
- Social media presence: Does the site link to active social profiles?
The registry evolves
The web changes, especially how AI systems read it, so this check registry grows over time. When we add checks, your score can move without your site changing; when that happens the change is visible in your scan history and change log rather than silent.
Questions about a specific check? Run a free scan and ask the AI Website Advisor, or email hello@ambarverde.com.