Glossary

Definitions for the terms used across reports, monitoring, and CI/CD.
Base URL

The root URL for a site (for example https://example.com). Scans start here and may use sitemaps and internal links to discover candidate pages.

Scan

A single run that samples pages from a base URL and produces artifacts (report + JSON) plus a pass/fail decision when validation rules are provided.

Template (pattern)

A group of pages that share a similar URL structure. SEODiff summarizes results per template so you can see systemic issues (not just individual URLs).

Issue key

A machine-readable identifier emitted by a check (for example schema_missing_required). Issue keys are what you should use in automation.

Issue rate

The percentage of sampled pages that have at least one failing issue key (0–100). Useful as a high-level gate when tuned carefully.

Incident

A diff-driven event created when monitoring detects a meaningful change compared to the previous run (new issues, spikes, drift).

Timeline

A template-level history view that shows how a template evolves over time (drift, issue rate, scoring).