5xx server errors: what it is and how to fix it
What it is
The server failed to return the page at all.
Why it matters to a client
A server error means nobody sees the page — not visitors, not Google. If it happens on a booking or checkout page, it is costing money right now.
How to find it
Run an AuditOpti free audit, or crawl the site with any crawler and filter the results by status code. In Google Search Console, the Pages report under Indexing lists the same problems from Google's side.
How to fix it
Send these URLs to whoever hosts the site and ask for the server error log for those requests. Recheck after the fix; intermittent errors often point at a plugin or a database timeout.
- 1In the SEO plugin (Yoast, Rank Math or SEOPress), open the page's SEO panel and correct the setting described above.
- 2If the problem repeats across a post type, change it once in the plugin's template settings rather than page by page.
- 3Clear any caching plugin afterwards, then re-check the live page in a private window.
How AuditOpti prioritizes it
AuditOpti scores this as critical severity by default, then multiplies it by how many pages are affected — one page is not the same problem as a hundred. After that, the AI re-ranks it against everything else on the site by likely business impact, so a critical-severity problem on a service page can outrank a critical one on a page nobody visits.
Check a site for this
Run a free audit and we'll tell you whether this issue is present — along with everything else worth fixing.