If you’ve ever run an Ahrefs site audit and been hit with a low Health Score, it might feel like something’s seriously wrong. But is it?
Let’s be clear: the Ahrefs Health Score is not a ranking signal. It doesn’t reflect your traffic, search visibility, or how well your site actually performs in Google. What it does measure is how many technical issues Ahrefs finds based on its checklist.
And many of those issues? They’re not always critical.
What Is the Ahrefs Health Score, Really?
Ahrefs calculates your Health Score based on the number and severity of technical issues it finds across your URLs. These include:
- Missing
alttext on images - Absent meta descriptions
- Duplicate or missing title tags
- Redirect chains – Yikes! You will be in a loop.
- Broken links
- Noindex or canonical tag conflicts
Every flagged issue lowers your score. But not every issue is equally meaningful.
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Should You Worry About a Low Ahrefs Health Score?
In most cases, no – especially if the flagged issues are minor.
A missing meta description on a page that already ranks well? Not a problem. An image missing alt text that’s decorative? Not affecting your SEO. On the other hand, broken internal links or a misconfigured canonical tag? Those can impact performance and should be fixed.
What matters isn’t the score itself, but the actual issues behind it – and how they align with your site’s SEO goals.
Use the Ahrefs Health Score as a To-Do List, Not a Grade
The Health Score is a tool – not a judgment. It gives you a list of things to look into. Some are real opportunities for improvement. Others are just noise.
On UltimateWB, you have the freedom to control every aspect of your site. That means it’s easy to clean up technical SEO issues when they do matter. You’re not limited by the platform, just by how much time you want to spend tweaking. Plus, UltimateWB sets you up for strong SEO from the start with fast load times, clean W3C-compliant code, and built-in accessibility best practices.
Related: What’s the Best Website Builder for SEO?
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What’s Worth Fixing?
Here’s a quick breakdown to help prioritize:
- Fix Immediately:
Broken links, crawl errors, redirect loops, noindexed key pages, canonical tag issues. - Fix When You Can:
Duplicate content, missing H1s, page speed bottlenecks. - Worth Reviewing:
Missing meta descriptions, especially if the page isn’t getting traffic. A strong meta can improve visibility and CTR if Google chooses to use it.
Final Thoughts
A low Ahrefs Health Score doesn’t mean your site is broken. It usually means your site has some technical “to-dos” – and it’s up to you to decide which ones are worth your attention.
If your site loads fast, ranks well, and converts – you’re doing it right. Use the Health Score for cleanup and optimization, not as a measurement of success. And if you’re building your site with UltimateWB, you already have the tools you need to stay fully in control.
Ready to design & build your own website? Learn more about UltimateWB! We also offer web design packages if you would like your website designed and built for you.
Got a techy/website question? Whether it’s about UltimateWB or another website builder, web hosting, or other aspects of websites, just send in your question in the “Ask David!” form. We will email you when the answer is posted on the UltimateWB “Ask David!” section.