Quick answer
A NOTABIS finding is a prompt to inspect measured evidence, not an automatic order to change the site. Some responses and signals are intentional, some are low-risk review items, and some are outside the score because they cannot be judged without your context. Keep a finding when it reflects the intended behaviour, document the reason, and fix it when the evidence shows an unintended user or crawler problem.
What the issue means
The report uses states such as FAIL, WARNING, REVIEW, INFO, INTENTIONAL, and EXPECTED to describe the evidence and its confidence. A FAIL still needs context: a 404 for a retired URL may be correct, while the same response on a current navigation link is a defect. A REVIEW can be a useful question without proving that a page is wrong.
An audit also has findings that are not suitable for a universal fix. For example, a private route may require authentication, and a one-link page may be deliberately kept out of normal navigation.
Why it matters for SEO
Blindly clearing every warning can make a site less honest and less usable. Redirecting all missing pages to the homepage can create poor destinations; adding irrelevant links can clutter navigation; and removing access controls can expose private content. Search systems evaluate the resulting site, not whether an audit list reached zero.
Contextual review protects the pages and users that the audit cannot understand from markup alone.
How NOTABIS detects it
NOTABIS records the rule state and evidence produced by each check, then displays the state in the report and evidence explorer. The Fix First list uses severity, reach, category impact, and evidence confidence to order groups. It does not know your business intent, release plan, legal requirements, or whether a URL is intentionally private.
The score calculation includes only FAIL and WARNING states in its scored categories. REVIEW, INFO, INTENTIONAL, and EXPECTED are excluded, but they remain visible so you can make an informed decision.
How to check it yourself
For each finding, ask:
- Is the URL public and intended to be discoverable?
- Does the response, markup, or header match that intention?
- Is the affected page important to users, search, or an internal workflow?
- Is the evidence complete, or was the page blocked, skipped, or unmeasured?
- Would the proposed change create a less relevant redirect, weaker accessibility, or an access-control problem?
Open the affected-page evidence, inspect the source and headers, and confirm the result from a normal user path. Write the decision in your issue tracker or release notes.
How to fix it
If the finding is real, fix the underlying route, template, response, link, or metadata and re-test it. If it is intentional, keep the implementation and record why it is correct. If the evidence is incomplete, improve coverage or run a targeted check before deciding.
Examples:
- Keep a
404for a removed URL with no relevant replacement, while removing internal links to it. - Keep
401on an account endpoint that must be private. - Leave a single contextual link on a deliberately isolated campaign page.
- Review an image with
alt=""when it is decorative; add a description when it conveys information.
Do not hide a finding by changing the response to 200 or by adding markup that does not represent the page.
When this is intentional or does not need fixing
The situations above are the reason this guide exists. Intentional errors, protected routes, decorative assets, optional metadata, and incomplete samples can all be valid. The correct action is a documented decision supported by evidence, not an automatic edit.
Related issues
Use HTTP error responses, image alt text, weak internal linking, and crawl coverage and audit limitations for common cases. SEO audit remediation checklist turns the review into a repeatable workflow.
Run a NOTABIS audit
Run a NOTABIS SEO audit to collect page-level evidence, then classify each finding against your site's intended behaviour.