You run your site through one SEO tool and get a reassuring 92. You try another and it says 61. Same website, same day — so which one is lying?
Neither, usually. SEO audit scores differ because each tool measures different things, weights them differently, and there’s no official “SEO score” from Google. Here’s why that happens, and how to actually use scores without driving yourself crazy.
There is no official SEO score
First, the big one: Google doesn’t publish an SEO score. Every score you see is a tool’s own invented metric — its opinion about your site, based on the checks it decided to run and how it chose to weight them. So comparing a 92 from one tool to a 61 from another is like comparing two teachers’ grades on different exams.
Why the numbers disagree
1. They check different things. One tool weights technical health heavily; another focuses on content and on-page; a third leans on backlinks. A site that’s technically clean but light on content scores high on one and low on another. (This is the technical vs on-page split showing up in the score.)
2. They weight issues differently. Two tools might both flag the same ten problems, but one treats a missing meta description as minor and another as major. Same issues, different math, different score.
3. Field data vs lab data. For speed and Core Web Vitals, some tools use lab data (a single controlled test) and others use field data (real visitors). These often disagree — the same page can look fast in a lab test and slower for real users. (More in Core Web Vitals explained.)
4. Different crawl depth. One tool checks a single page; another crawls your whole site. A great homepage with weak inner pages scores very differently depending on how much the tool looked at.
5. When they crawled. Sites change. A score from this morning and one from last week can differ simply because you (or Google) changed something in between.
So which score should you trust?
Don’t trust the number — trust the findings. The score is a headline; the value is in the specific issues underneath it. Two tools disagreeing on the score will usually still agree on the real problems: “your titles are weak,” “these pages aren’t indexed,” “your LCP is slow.” That list is what matters.
Practical approach:
- Pick one tool and track its score over time. Consistency with yourself beats comparing across tools. Going from 61 to 78 in the same tool is real progress; matching another tool’s 92 is meaningless.
- Act on the issues, not the digits. Fix what the report lists, re-run, watch your own trend line move.
- Cross-check the big stuff (indexing, Core Web Vitals) against Google Search Console, which reflects Google’s actual view.
What actually matters (regardless of score)
No tool’s score is the goal — rankings, traffic, and conversions are. A perfect 100 that doesn’t bring visitors is worthless; a 70 on a page that ranks and converts is a win. Use the score as a progress tracker for yourself, not a grade to obsess over.
That’s how I designed the score in my own audit tool: as a consistent baseline you can watch improve as you fix things — not a number to compare against someone else’s tool.
Frequently asked questions
Why do different SEO tools give different scores?
Because there’s no official SEO score — each tool invents its own, checking different factors and weighting them differently. They also vary in crawl depth and whether they use lab or real-user data, so the same site scores differently across tools.
Which SEO audit tool is the most accurate?
No score is “accurate” in an absolute sense, since Google doesn’t publish one. Trust the specific findings over the number, and cross-check important items like indexing and Core Web Vitals against Google Search Console.
Should I worry if my SEO score is low in one tool?
Look at the issues behind the score rather than the number. If the flagged problems are minor or don’t apply, a low score may not matter. Focus on fixing real issues and improving your trend over time in one tool.
Is a higher SEO score always better?
Not necessarily. The goal is rankings, traffic, and conversions — not a tool’s invented number. A lower-scoring page that ranks and converts beats a perfect score that brings no visitors.
How should I use an SEO audit score?
As a progress tracker within a single tool: fix the listed issues, re-run the audit, and watch your own score trend upward over time. Don’t compare scores across different tools.
Track your own progress
Forget comparing tools — pick one and improve your trend. Run a free audit to get a baseline score and the specific issues behind it, then watch it climb as you fix them. Learn the full method in SEO in Action.
Written by Mariana Yamakawa, SEO specialist and author of SEO in Action. Last updated August 2026.