What Are On-Page Signals?
On-page signals are the building blocks a ranking page tends to have — the title and meta description, a single clear heading, alt text on images, sharing tags, and descriptive link text. They are the most reachable part of the winning signature.
The 12 Signals in This Category
Each is defined the way a customer would read it — plainly, with no fix instruction and no data source named. DNA Match counts a signal only where the winners in your market clearly separate from the trailing pages.
- Has a title tag
- Whether the page has a title — the headline shown in the browser tab and, usually, as the clickable line in results.
- Title length in the effective range
- Whether that title sits in the length range that tends to show in full rather than being cut off in results.
- Has a meta description
- Whether the page offers a short summary for engines to show beneath its title in the results.
- Meta description length in range
- Whether that summary sits in the length range that tends to display without being truncated.
- Has an H1 heading
- Whether the page has a main heading that states, in one line, what the page is about.
- Exactly one H1
- Whether there is exactly one main heading, so the page's single topic is unambiguous.
- Share of images with alt text
- The share of images that carry a text description, so their meaning survives for engines and for readers who cannot see them.
- Open Graph tags for sharing
- Whether the page carries the tags that give it a proper title, image, and summary when it is shared on social platforms.
- Twitter/social card tags
- Whether the page carries the extra card tags some platforms use to show a richer share preview.
- Sane heading hierarchy
- Whether the page's headings step down in a sensible order rather than skipping levels — the outline a reader and a crawler follow.
- Number of internal links
- How many links the page points to other pages on the same site — the paths that let engines and readers move through it.
- Share of descriptive (non-generic) link text
- The share of links whose visible words say where they lead, rather than a vague 'click here'.
The Questions People Ask
What are on page signals?
On-page signals are the building blocks a ranking page tends to have — the title and meta description, a single clear heading, alt text on images, sharing tags, and descriptive link text. They are the most reachable part of the winning signature.
Do these signals tell me how to fix my site?
No. These are definitions — what each signal is and why the winning pages carry it. The specific work belongs to the member report and the Rank Codex, never a public page.
The Rank Codex reads these signals at depth, in the order they are worth the work — decomposed and specific to your market.