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Content fix guide

Low Content-to-Code Ratio Sitewide

Multiple pages across the site have a low content-to-code ratio, indicating template bloat or thin content at the template level.

Issue ID: CT-RATIO-SITEWIDE-001
Severity: minor
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.
Re-run full audit

What this issue is

Multiple pages across the site have a low content-to-code ratio, indicating template bloat or thin content at the template level.

Why it matters

Multiple pages across the site have a low content-to-code ratio, indicating template bloat or thin content at the template level. 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 CT-RATIO-SITEWIDE-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

  1. 1Reduce boilerplate HTML, CSS, and JavaScript in page templates
  2. 2Add more substantive content to thin pages
  3. 3Externalize large CSS and JS blocks

How to re-check it

  • Average content-to-code ratio across crawled pages exceeds 15%

Related tools

This issue is best verified with the full FreeSiteAudit crawl rather than a single-point mini tool.