Home All Checks Start Audit

Character Encoding Checker

Check if the page encoding is correctly specified and matches between the header and HTML

Check Results

This only checks encoding. For a comprehensive analysis, use the full page check.

You can also audit your entire site. Duplicate titles and descriptions, orphan pages, broken links between sections, and other site-wide issues can only be found with a full site audit.

If you don't have an SEO specialist, we can help fix the errors found.

Full Page Check Full Site Audit Fix Errors

What Is Character Encoding and Why It Matters

Character encoding (charset) determines how bytes in an HTML document are converted into characters on screen. If the encoding is specified incorrectly or is missing, text on the page may display as garbled characters. The standard for the modern web is UTF-8.

What This Tool Checks

  • Charset meta tag — whether encoding is specified in HTML
  • Content-Type header — whether encoding is sent in the HTTP header
  • Encoding match — whether encoding is the same in header and HTML
  • UTF-8 usage — whether the recommended encoding is used
  • Tag position — the charset meta tag should be within the first 1024 bytes of the document

Why Encoding Matters for SEO

Incorrect encoding prevents search bots from properly reading page content. Text displayed as garbled characters won't be indexed for the right queries. Additionally, garbled text on a page worsens user behavior metrics — users immediately leave such sites.

  • Search engines cannot properly index text with incorrect encoding
  • Non-ASCII characters are particularly sensitive to encoding errors
  • UTF-8 supports all world languages and is the HTML5 standard
  • Mismatched encoding in header and HTML causes unpredictable behavior

Common Mistakes

  • Encoding not specified — the browser tries to detect it automatically, which doesn't always work
  • Using windows-1251 instead of UTF-8 — outdated encoding that doesn't support many characters
  • Encoding mismatch between HTTP header and meta tag — browsers prioritize them differently
  • Charset meta tag placed far from the document start — the browser may not detect it
  • File saved in one encoding but a different one specified in the meta tag

Frequently Asked Questions

Why does the page show garbled characters? ▶
This usually happens due to a mismatch between the actual file encoding and what's specified in the meta tag or HTTP header. For example, the file is saved in windows-1251 but UTF-8 is specified in the meta tag. The solution is to standardize everything to UTF-8.
Why is UTF-8 better than windows-1251? ▶
UTF-8 is a universal encoding that supports characters from all world languages, emojis, and special symbols. Windows-1251 only supports Cyrillic and Latin. The HTML5 standard recommends UTF-8, and all modern websites use it.
Where should encoding be specified — in HTML or the server header? ▶
It's best to specify it in both places, and they should match. The meta tag <meta charset="UTF-8"> should be in the first lines of the <head> section. The HTTP header Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8 is configured on the server side.

Other Checks

Indexing Check
robots.txt Check
sitemap.xml Check
SSL Certificate Check
HTTP/HTTPS Check
www Redirect Check
Title Tag Check
Meta Description Check
Headings Check
Canonical Check
Viewport Check
Open Graph Check
Encoding Check
Image Format Check
Alt Tags Check
Lazy Loading Check
Internal Links Check
External Links Check
Broken Links Check
Structured Data Check
Compression Check
HTML Size Check
Render-blocking JS Check
Mixed Content Check
HSTS Check
URL Structure Check