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Pages are set up for phone screens
seo.missing-viewport
Why this matters
Without a viewport tag, phones render the page at desktop width and shrink it, so text is unreadably small and visitors have to pinch and scroll sideways. Most people will simply leave.
Who fixes it
You can, usually
Roughly how long
10 minutes
Care needed
Low risk to change
How to fix it
Add <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1"> to the <head> of every page.
On your platform
WordPress
Every theme built in the last decade includes this, so a missing one means an old theme or a hand-edited one. It belongs in the theme's `header.php`, inside the `<head>`. Edit it in a child theme, or the next theme update will quietly undo the fix.
Shopify
In `theme.liquid`, inside the `<head>` — Online Store → Themes → Edit code. Every Shopify theme ships with it, so a missing one means the head has been edited. Duplicate the theme before changing it.
Drupal
In the theme's `html.html.twig`. The core themes include it, so a missing one points at a custom theme.
Joomla
In the template's `index.php`, inside the `<head>`. Every current Joomla template has it, so a missing one means an old or custom template.
How we score it
Failing this check takes up to 15 points off your search score. It is a fact about your site rather than a measurement, so it reads the same on every scan until you change something.
Does your site pass this one?
This check runs on every scan, along with the other 106. Free, no account, and you see the evidence for each result.
Check my siteOther search checks
- Canonical tags point somewhere validA canonical tag tells Google which address is the real one for a page. When it points somewhere wrong — another domain, a dead page, or the wrong protocol — Google follows it anyway, and the page you wanted indexed can be dropped in favour of one that does not exist.
- Content has been updated recentlySome content is meant to sit still, and age alone is not a fault. But prices, opening hours and staff pages that have not been touched in over a year are usually wrong by now — and a visitor who acts on the wrong opening hours does not come back to check whether the rest was right.
- Descriptions are a sensible lengthLong descriptions get truncated mid-sentence; very short ones waste the space you are given.
- Each page has exactly one title tagA page can only have one title. When there are several, the browser and Google each pick one — and they do not always pick the same one, so what you see in the tab may not be what appears in search.
- Each page has one main headingSeveral top-level headings makes the structure of the page ambiguous. Worth checking rather than urgent — modern HTML permits it, and Google handles it, but it usually signals that headings are being chosen for their size.
- Every page has a main headingThe h1 is the headline of the page. Without one, both visitors skimming and search engines parsing the page have nothing telling them what it is about.