Running your first scan

Quick or Full

Quick Scan checks your most important pages and the site-wide settings. It finishes in about thirty seconds and is the right choice for a first look or a fast re-check after changes.

Full Scan walks every published page, post and product. It takes three to five minutes on a typical site and is what you want before a proper cleanup session.

Both run the same 46 checks. The difference is coverage, not depth.

Running one

1. Open SEO Merlin → Run Scan from the sidebar.
2. Pick Quick or Full.
3. Click Start scan and leave the tab open.

A scan only reads. It doesn’t write anything to your site, doesn’t call the AI, and costs nothing — even with a key connected. The AI is only involved later, when you ask for a specific fix to be written.

What happens during

You’ll see a live progress readout with the current category and a running count of what’s been found. Categories complete in sequence, so results start appearing before the scan finishes.

If a check needs a connection you haven’t made — Search Console, say, or a backlink data key — it’s skipped and labelled as such rather than failing silently. You always know what ran and what didn’t.

Reading the result

When it finishes you land on the Issues list, grouped by category and sorted by severity. Every issue carries three things: what’s wrong, which pages are affected, and whether the plugin can fix it for you or only advise.

Don’t try to clear everything at once. Start with the errors in Content and Technical — those move the needle furthest, and they’re mostly one-click fixable.

How often to rescan

A Full Scan monthly is plenty for most sites. Run a Quick Scan after publishing a batch of new content, or after any theme or plugin change that might have touched your markup.

Scanning is unlimited on every tier, including free — there’s no reason to ration it.

Next: Understanding the Issues list →