This page answers the most common questions about how SEO Watcher works, what happens behind the scenes, and how the PRO version saves you hours of manual work every week.
Getting Started
1. What is the fastest way to get started with SEO Watcher?
Use the Setup Wizard. Go to Extensions > 🧿 SEO Watcher 🧿 > Setup Wizard to open a guided sidebar that walks you through every step:
- Initialize the required spreadsheet sheets (checks, results, results_log, header, error_log).
- Connect Google Search Console (optional) to auto-discover your top-performing URLs and enable index status checks.
- Select URLs to monitor — either from your GSC data or entered manually.
- Analyze each URL and choose which check types to create (HTTP status, meta robots, title, H1, canonical, GSC index status, robots.txt).
- Configure email reports (optional) to receive alerts after each run.
- Review a summary of everything that was set up.
The wizard handles initialization, URL discovery, check creation, and email configuration in a single flow — no manual spreadsheet editing needed.
2. How do I add checks after the initial setup?
Go to Extensions > 🧿 SEO Watcher 🧿 > Insert Check. A 6-step sidebar wizard opens on the right side of the screen where you enter the URL, check type, element, expected value, and comparison modifier. You can also add checks manually by editing the checks sheet directly — this is useful for bulk-importing or duplicating checks.
Execution Limits & the Watchdog
3. Why does my update sometimes stop before finishing all checks?
Google Sheets extensions run on Google Apps Script, which enforces a strict 6-minute execution limit on every script run. SEO Watcher handles this limit differently depending on your plan:
- Free version: A soft cutoff triggers at around 5.5 minutes. Any remaining checks at that point are marked as “failed” and you need to manually re-run the update.
- PRO version: The built-in Watchdog feature triggers earlier, at around the 4.5-minute mark — well before the hard limit. It automatically pauses the update, saves its exact progress, and resumes on its own a few seconds later. This cycle repeats as many times as needed until every single check is completed — with zero manual intervention on your part. You start the update and walk away; the PRO Watchdog handles the rest.
4. What exactly is the “Watchdog” and how does it work?
The Watchdog is an exclusive PRO feature that manages Google’s 6-minute execution limit for you. Here is what happens under the hood:
- The Watchdog starts a timer when your update begins.
- At around the 4.5-minute mark (well before the 6-minute hard cut-off), it pauses execution.
- It saves your progress — which URL it was on, how many checks it completed, and the current timestamp.
- It immediately schedules a new run that picks up exactly where it left off.
- Steps 1–4 repeat automatically until every check is done.
- Once all checks finish, the email report is sent (if configured).
The result: whether you have 50 checks or 500, the PRO version completes them all hands-off, without you ever needing to click “Run” again.
5. Is there a limit on how many checks I can run?
| Free | PRO | |
|---|---|---|
| Maximum checks per update | 50 | Unlimited |
| Time-limit handling | Remaining checks fail at 5.5 min | Watchdog auto-resumes at 4.5 min |
| Manual re-runs needed | Yes, if checks exceed limits | No — fully automatic |
With the Free version, once you hit 50 checks the remaining ones are logged as failed with a message asking you to upgrade. With PRO, there is no cap — the Watchdog chains as many execution windows as necessary to process every check, giving you a truly hands-off experience.
6. My Free update finished but some checks say “failed — LICENSE LIMIT REACHED.” What does that mean?
This means your spreadsheet has more than 50 checks and you are on the Free plan. The Free version processes the first 50 checks and marks anything beyond that as failed. Upgrading to PRO removes this limit entirely and enables the Watchdog, so all your checks run to completion automatically — no matter how many you have.
Check Types & Capabilities
7. What types of checks can SEO Watcher run?
SEO Watcher supports eight distinct check types, each targeting a different layer of your website’s SEO health:
| Check Type | What It Does |
|---|---|
| Content | Verify text, headings, or HTML elements on a page using CSS selectors or raw HTML search. |
| Meta | Monitor meta tags (description, keywords, robots, canonical, viewport, author) in the HTML head. |
| Header | Inspect HTTP status codes, redirect targets, and response headers (x-robots-tag, cache-control, etc.). |
| SERP | Track keyword rankings in Google search results via SerpApi integration. |
| Sitemap | Verify that a URL is listed inside an XML sitemap. |
| Robots.txt | Check whether a URL is allowed or disallowed by robots.txt rules. |
| Index Status | Query Google Search Console’s URL Inspection API for the real indexation verdict. |
| Ping | Notify search engines (Ping-o-Matic, Google PubSubHubbub) when your feed has fresh content. |
All eight check types are available in both the Free and PRO versions. The difference is only in how many checks can run per update (50 for Free, unlimited for PRO).
8. How do SERP checks work?
SERP checks use the SerpApi integration to query Google search results for a given keyword and verify whether your URL appears within a chosen ranking threshold (top10, top5, top3, or topOfSerp for position 1 only). If the URL appears in organic results or in the Answer Box within the threshold, the check passes.
SERP checks are fully configurable via Extensions > 🧿 SEO Watcher 🧿 > Settings > SerpApi. You can set:
- Google domain — target any national Google search (e.g., google.com, google.co.uk, google.de)
- Device — desktop, mobile, or tablet
- Location — the geographic location to simulate
- Language — interface language (hl), region (gl), and search language (lr)
A SerpApi key must be configured before SERP checks will work. All parameters default to whatever you set in the SerpApi configuration sidebar.
9. Does SEO Watcher support Google Search Console integration?
Yes. SEO Watcher connects to Google Search Console through two authentication methods:
- OAuth 2.0 — one-click authorization using your Google account.
- Service Account — for advanced setups where a service account email has direct access to GSC properties.
Once connected, you can run index status checks that query Google’s URL Inspection API and return the coverage state, verdict, last crawl time, robots.txt state, and indexing state for any URL. Configure GSC in Extensions > 🧿 SEO Watcher 🧿 > Settings > Search Console > Configure GSC.
Privacy & Data Storage
10. Where is my data stored? Is it sent to external servers?
All of your data stays inside your own Google Sheet. SEO Watcher uses the @OnlyCurrentDoc scope, which means the script can only access the spreadsheet it is installed in — not your other files, not your Drive, not your email content.
Here is what SEO Watcher does not do:
- It does not send your URLs, check results, or any spreadsheet data to external servers.
- It does not store anything in third-party databases.
- It does not share your data with other users.
The only external network calls the tool makes are:
| Call | Purpose |
|---|---|
| Your own websites | To run the SEO checks you configured |
| Google Search Console API | Only if you enable GSC checks, using your own credentials |
| SerpApi | Only if you enable SERP checks, using your own API key |
| Gumroad API | Only to verify your PRO license key (no spreadsheet data is sent) |
Your SEO monitoring data is yours and yours alone. The PRO version does not change this — it simply unlocks more features while keeping the same privacy-first architecture. You get a powerful, hands-off monitoring solution without ever giving up control of your data.
11. Can other people see my checks or results?
Only people who have access to your Google Sheet can see your data. SEO Watcher does not have its own dashboard or cloud portal. Everything lives in the spreadsheet, and Google Sheets’ standard sharing and permission rules apply.
12. Is my PRO license key stored securely?
Your license key is stored in the script’s internal properties (Google Apps Script’s PropertiesService), which is tied to your spreadsheet and not visible to other users. The key is only sent to Gumroad’s license API to verify that it is active — no other data accompanies it.
User-Agent & Website Scanning
13. What User-Agent does SEO Watcher use when scanning my sites?
When SEO Watcher visits your URLs to run checks, it sends HTTP requests with custom headers that you control. During initialization, a header sheet is created in your spreadsheet. This sheet lets you define the HTTP headers — including the User-Agent — that are sent with every request.
By default, the Referer header is set to https://docs.google.com/ (since requests originate from Google’s infrastructure). You can add or modify headers in the header sheet at any time — for example, to set a custom User-Agent string that identifies the requests as coming from SEO Watcher.
This transparency means you are always in control of how your tool identifies itself to your websites and third-party services.
14. Will SEO Watcher’s requests trigger my firewall or bot protection?
Because SEO Watcher runs on Google’s servers (Apps Script infrastructure), requests come from Google IP ranges. Some firewalls or CDNs (like Cloudflare) may flag these. If that happens:
- Check the
headersheet in your spreadsheet and add a descriptiveUser-Agentvalue (e.g.,SEOWatcher/1.0 (monitoring)). - Whitelist Google Apps Script IP ranges in your firewall if needed.
With the PRO version’s Watchdog, requests are paced with built-in delays between checks (200ms per URL), which prevents aggressive request patterns. Combined with the ability to schedule updates at specific hours, PRO gives you a hands-off monitoring setup that plays nicely with server resources.
15. Can I control how often SEO Watcher scans my sites?
- Free version: You must manually click Run Update each time you want fresh data.
- PRO version: You can schedule one automatic update per day at a specific hour of your choosing. Go to Extensions > 🧿 SEO Watcher 🧿 > Settings > Schedule Updates to pick the time. The tool runs on its own at that hour, the Watchdog handles any time-limit issues, and you receive an email report when everything is done. It is a completely hands-off workflow — set it once and your SEO monitoring runs itself.
Email Reports
16. What email report templates are available?
SEO Watcher offers different email report formats depending on your plan:
- Free plan: Receives a basic summary email listing check results.
- PRO — Site Owner template (default): A clean per-URL breakdown showing total, passed, failed, and changed counts for each page. Ideal for monitoring your own site.
- PRO — Agency template: Groups results by domain, with a health percentage shown for each domain and a global score across all monitored URLs. Best suited for agencies managing multiple clients in a single spreadsheet.
The health percentage is calculated as passed checks / total checks × 100 and is color-coded:
| Health | Color |
|---|---|
| 90% and above | Green |
| 60%–89% | Yellow |
| Below 60% | Red |
Switch between templates in Extensions > 🧿 SEO Watcher 🧿 > Settings > Email Reports.
17. Can I sort email report results by priority instead of by URL?
Yes. PRO users can choose between two sort orders in the email report:
- By URL (default): Results are listed in alphabetical URL order.
- By Priority: Failed domains are listed first, then domains with changed checks, then fully passing domains. This surfaces the most urgent issues at the top of the report so you see problems immediately without scrolling.
The sort order is configurable in Extensions > 🧿 SEO Watcher 🧿 > Settings > Email Reports.
General Questions
18. Do I need any coding skills to use SEO Watcher?
No. Everything is managed through the menus and sidebars inside Google Sheets. The Setup Wizard guides you through initial configuration, the Insert Check sidebar walks you through creating checks, and all settings are configured through visual forms. You read results directly in your spreadsheet. No code editing is required.
19. What sheets does SEO Watcher create in my spreadsheet?
SEO Watcher creates five sheets during initialization:
| Sheet | Purpose |
|---|---|
| checks | Stores your monitoring rules — one row per check (URL, type, element, value, modifier). |
| results | Latest result for each check, including status, timestamp, last value found, and whether it changed. Rebuilt on every run. |
| results_log | Full historical log of every check result over time. Append-only — useful for trend analysis. |
| header | HTTP headers (e.g., Referer, User-Agent) sent when fetching pages. You edit this directly. |
| error_log | Error records with timestamps, context, messages, and stack traces for debugging. |
Do not rename or delete these sheets — SEO Watcher locates them by name.
Tip: You can inspect active triggers and execution state at any time via Extensions > 🧿 SEO Watcher 🧿 > Settings > System Info.
20. What is the difference between Free and PRO in a nutshell?
| Feature | Free | PRO |
|---|---|---|
| Number of checks | Up to 50 | Unlimited |
| Watchdog (auto-resume) | No | Yes |
| Scheduled updates | No | Yes — once daily at a chosen hour |
| Email report template | Basic summary | Site Owner or Agency template |
| Health percentage in email | No | Yes (Agency template) |
| Priority-based email sorting | No | Yes |
| Time-limit handling | Checks fail at ~5.5 min | Automatic resume at ~4.5 min |
| Manual effort required | High | Minimal — hands-off |
The PRO version is designed so you can set up your checks once and never think about them again. The Watchdog, scheduling, and email reports work together to deliver a fully automated, hands-off SEO monitoring experience that saves you hours of repetitive manual work every week.
21. How do I upgrade to PRO?
- Go to Extensions > 🧿 SEO Watcher 🧿 > Settings > Manage License in your spreadsheet menu.
- Click the link to purchase a PRO subscription.
- Enter the license key you receive into the sidebar and activate it.
Your PRO features — unlimited checks, the Watchdog, scheduled updates, Agency and Site Owner email templates, health percentage reporting, and priority-based email sorting — are available immediately after activation.
22. I have more questions. Where can I get help?
If your question is not covered here, check these guides for detailed instructions:
- Installation Guide — setup, configuration, authorization, and getting started with the Setup Wizard.
- Insert Check Guide — detailed instructions for every check type, with examples and use cases.
- Sheet Overview Guide — complete documentation of every sheet, column, data format, and data flow.
- Troubleshooting Guide — solutions for the most common errors, with a quick-reference error message table.