Content fix guide
Boilerplate Overload Reducing Extractability
Page has a low content-to-code ratio, suggesting heavy boilerplate (nav, footer, widgets) relative to unique content, making AI extraction harder.
Issue ID: AI-BOILERPLATE-001
Severity: advisory
Impact: Low
Effort: M
Use this article when
- You need deeper remediation guidance than the issue card can show.
- You want CMS-specific steps before handing the fix to a developer.
- You want a repeatable re-check path after shipping the change.
What this issue is
Page has a low content-to-code ratio, suggesting heavy boilerplate (nav, footer, widgets) relative to unique content, making AI extraction harder.
Why it matters
Page has a low content-to-code ratio, suggesting heavy boilerplate (nav, footer, widgets) relative to unique content, making AI extraction harder. This affects clarity, topical depth, and whether a visitor sees an obvious reason to keep reading.
How we detect it
- FreeSiteAudit flags this issue when the rule for AI-BOILERPLATE-001 fails and the page evidence points to Dom body.
- You can usually confirm this by checking the page source or the relevant page settings inside your CMS.
Evidence examples
Check the affected page source, rendered output, or relevant CMS setting to confirm the missing or incorrect element.
How to fix it
- 1Reduce boilerplate HTML in templates
- 2Ensure main content is wrapped in a <main> or <article> element
- 3Use semantic landmarks (header, main, footer, aside) to help AI identify primary content
How to re-check it
- Content-to-code ratio exceeds 15% and main content is in a <main> element
Related tools
This issue is best verified with the full FreeSiteAudit crawl rather than a single-point mini tool.