This page contains no new data. It differences the frozen figures in the September 2026 and October 2026 editions — which is why no number here can ever disagree with the pages it came from.
Reading a monthly difference. The two months are close in size, but they are not the same set of sites. A different mix of sites can move a median and a distribution by itself, so a monthly difference is not a change in scores: it does not show that sites improved or got worse.
The change, tool by tool
From September 2026 to October 2026, 12 of the 25 tools had a higher median, 10 the same and 3 a lower one. The largest fall was on the NLP Content Analyzer (65 → 56) and the largest rise on the Entity Extractor (58 → 79). In the chart below each tool’s grey dot is its September 2026 median and its coloured dot the October 2026 one.
- September 2026
- October 2026 — median up
- October 2026 — median down
| Tool | Median then | Median now | Change | Scored 80+ | Issues/run |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Entity Extractor | 58 | 79 | +21 pts | 24% +5 pp | 1.5 −0.4 |
| Entity Coverage Analyzer | 52 | 67 | +15 pts | 29% +2 pp | 2.4 −0.1 |
| AI Visibility Checker | 59 | 68 | +9 pts | 29% +5 pp | 5.7 −0.8 |
| GEO Checker (Generative Engine Optimization) | 53 | 62 | +9 pts | 23% +6 pp | 6.7 −0.8 |
| NLP Content Analyzer | 65 | 56 | −9 pts | 10% no change | 2.9 no change |
| Mobile-Friendly Checker | 92 | 84 | −8 pts | 60% −5 pp | 2.0 no change |
| GEO & AEO Readiness Checker | 58 | 64 | +6 pts | 19% +6 pp | 14.4 −1.7 |
| LLM Readability Score | 72 | 66 | −6 pts | 33% −6 pp | 3.3 +0.1 |
| AI Citation Checker | 46 | 51 | +5 pts | 9% +2 pp | 6.9 −0.5 |
| Author Page Audit | 49 | 54 | +5 pts | 12% +4 pp | 3.4 −0.4 |
| Technical Site Audit (Crawler) | 60 | 64 | +4 pts | 35% +9 pp | 4.4 −0.2 |
| Meta Tag Analyzer | 80 | 83 | +3 pts | 59% +8 pp | 2.9 −0.4 |
| All-in-One SEO Audit | 73 | 75 | +2 pts | 38% +10 pp | 14.2 −0.9 |
| On-Page SEO Audit | 74 | 76 | +2 pts | 38% +7 pp | 10.6 −0.7 |
| AI Content Score | 63 | 64 | +1 pts | 10% no change | 6.0 −0.3 |
| Page Speed & Size Test | 90 | 90 | no change | 75% no change | 1.2 no change |
| E-E-A-T Analyzer | 38 | 38 | no change | 1% no change | 6.5 −0.3 |
| Thin Content Checker | 36 | 36 | no change | 25% +4 pp | 2.8 −0.2 |
| AEO Checker (Answer Engine Optimization) | 40 | 40 | no change | 2% +1 pp | 5.7 −0.3 |
| Local SEO Audit | 22 | 22 | no change | 1% no change | 6.0 −0.2 |
| Content Freshness Score | 13 | 13 | no change | 2% +1 pp | 4.2 −0.2 |
| AI FAQ Optimizer | 30 | 30 | no change | 2% +1 pp | 0.0 no change |
| Topical Authority Map | 47 | 47 | no change | 9% +1 pp | 2.9 −0.2 |
| Anchor Text Optimizer | 79 | 79 | no change | 43% −2 pp | 1.1 −0.1 |
| FAQ Gap Finder | 0 | 0 | no change | 3% +1 pp | 2.8 no change |
“pp” means percentage points: a share moving from 35% to 40% has risen 5 pp. Green marks a figure moving in the favourable direction — so a falling share of unmet checks shows green too. The colour states direction only; it does not mean sites improved.
How the sample changed
This is the first thing to look at before reading anything else. Scans went 86,983 → 89,498, unique sites 22,549 → 22,497. The two months are not the same sites, so a move on this page need not mean sites changed — it can equally mean the cross-section being measured did.
Check by check: which rates fell and which rose
The percentages below are the share of scans in which a SeoMods check was not met; a falling rate means the check went unmet in a smaller share of that month’s sample. For the full audit tool, biggest movers first.
| Check | Not met then | Not met now | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Author & date (E-E-A-T) | 91% | 83% | −8 pp |
| Open Graph tags | 57% | 52% | −5 pp |
| Twitter Card | 56% | 51% | −5 pp |
| Healthy text-to-HTML ratio | 78% | 74% | −4 pp |
| All images have ALT text | 60% | 56% | −4 pp |
| llms.txt present | 81% | 79% | −2 pp |
| Title length optimal (30–60) | 55% | 53% | −2 pp |
| No fixed desktop widths | 63% | 62% | no change |
| Question-style headings | 59% | 59% | no change |
AI visibility checks
| Check | Not met then | Not met now | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Organization / WebSite schema | 61% | 48% | −13 pp |
| JSON-LD structured data | 57% | 44% | −13 pp |
| Publish / update dates | 67% | 56% | −11 pp |
| About page linked | 57% | 48% | −9 pp |
| Content in raw HTML (server-rendered) | 30% | 23% | −7 pp |
| Social / sameAs profiles linked | 51% | 45% | −6 pp |
| llms.txt present | 82% | 79% | −3 pp |
| In-depth content (≥800 words) | 40% | 37% | −3 pp |
Every other tool, check by check
The two tables above open up the full audit and AI visibility only. Every tool has the same breakdown on its own October 2026 page: the figure on each card is its October 2026 median, and the line under it the September 2026 median and the gap.
On AI visibility the median went 59 → 68. That difference, too, is between two separate samples; the AI visibility score is calculated against SeoMods’ own criteria.
How to read this comparison
- Cross-section, not panel. Each month measures whatever sites were scanned that month. This does not follow the same sites over time.
- Small moves are noise. Differences under half a point are marked “no change” and should not be read as a trend.
- Sample size comes first. If the scan count changed by an order of magnitude, a shift in the median is far more likely to be composition than behaviour.
- One methodology. Both editions were measured with the same checks and the same scoring; the method is on the hub.
What these scores do not measure
- It is not a Google ranking. A high score does not guarantee a better position, and a low one does not mean Google has penalised the page.
- It is not an organic traffic estimate. No click, impression or visit data goes into it.
- It is not Google’s E-E-A-T score. Google publishes no such score; E-E-A-T is a concept from its search quality rater guidelines.
- It is not a Google PageSpeed Insights score. Nothing here is run in a browser, and Core Web Vitals (LCP, INP, CLS) are not measured.
- It does not represent the whole of the real user experience. What is measured is one URL’s HTML and server response at the moment of the scan.
- It is not a direct measurement of the signals every AI system uses. Which system uses which signal, and how, is not public; the score measures the checks SeoMods chose.
About this benchmark. This benchmark is calculated from data on the sites SeoMods has scanned. The results do not necessarily represent all websites, or a random selection of them. The scores express SeoMods’ own measurement and scoring criteria; they are not ranking, quality, E-E-A-T or AI visibility scores issued by Google. Sample, anonymization and licence: the full methodology.
Frequently asked questions
Did SEO scores go up or down between September 2026 and October 2026?
The median audit score moved from 73 to 75. Two things govern how that should be read: the sample size changed (86,983 → 89,498 scans), and the sites measured in the two months are not the same sites. So this does not mean individual sites improved — it is the difference between two cross-sections of the web.
Why is the difference not the same as sites improving?
Because each month’s sample is whatever domains were scanned that month, and those sets do not overlap exactly. A fall in the share of scans not meeting a SeoMods check can come from existing sites starting to meet it, or from a different — and differently sized — mix of sites being scanned. Read the comparison as two separate cross-sections, not as a panel study following the same sites over time.