SiteAud!tLint Support

Critical Technical SEO

Server error (5xx)

Severity
Critical
Impact
High
Effort to fix
Medium
Issue code
http_5xx

Why it matters

The server failed while generating the page. Repeated 5xx responses can cause pages to drop out of the index.

How to fix it

Check server and application logs for this URL and fix the underlying error.

How it affects your score

Finding this issue on any page costs the Technical SEO score 8 points, plus up to 25 more depending on the share of crawled pages affected. As a critical issue type it also takes 3 points off overall site health (critical deductions stop at 15 points). Blocks indexing, breaks pages or loses traffic. Fix these first.

Find the affected URLs

Open Crawl > Issues and pick Server error (5xx). Each affected URL is listed with its evidence, and Copy URLs or Export URLs hands the list to a developer. The issue also appears in the Action Plan, ranked by impact (high) and effort (medium), and in the issues CSV under the code http_5xx. After fixing, run a new audit and use Compare to confirm the URLs moved to fixed.