---
title: "An audit failed. What should I do"
category: troubleshooting
slug: an-audit-failed-what-should-i-do
canonical_url: https://lemaudit.com/help/troubleshooting/an-audit-failed-what-should-i-do
last_reviewed: 2026-05-04
source: LemAudit Help Center
---
# An audit failed. What should I do?

Click **Re-Audit** once. 7 in 10 failed audits succeed on the second try because the cause is a transient network blip. If it fails again, the URL is almost certainly behind a bot block, a login wall, or is offline.

## What "failed" actually means

A failed audit is any run where the [run-audit edge function](/help/audits/how-do-seo-audits-work) could not produce a [health score](/help/audits/how-is-the-health-score-calculated). The function returns 1 of 4 reasons: HTTP fetch timeout (10 seconds), PageSpeed timeout (25 seconds), DNS resolution error, or HTTP status >= 400 from the target. The error appears as a red banner on the lead detail page with the specific reason.

Think of it like a pizza driver who could not deliver. The address was wrong, the road was closed, or no one answered.

## How to diagnose in 30 seconds

Walk these 4 checks in order:

1. **Open the URL in your browser.** If it does not load for you, it will not load for LemAudit.
2. **Check for a Cloudflare or hCaptcha challenge.** If a "verify you are human" page appears, LemAudit sees that page, not the real site, and abandons.
3. **Confirm HTTPS.** `http://` URLs that 301 to `https://` work; pure-HTTP sites with no redirect fail.
4. **Check your [audit quota](/help/billing/what-are-audit-limits-per-plan).** If you are at the cap, every new audit fails immediately with a quota message.

If all 4 pass and the audit still fails, the [widget troubleshooter](/help/troubleshooting/the-widget-isn-t-showing-on-my-website-what-s-wrong) covers the related case where audits run from the embedded widget specifically.

## Worked example

An agency saw 4 failed audits in a row on a regional law firm's site. Browser load worked. Reason: Cloudflare bot fight mode was on. The agency emailed the firm asking them to whitelist crawler.lemaudit.com for 5 minutes; the next audit completed in 14 seconds and scored 62. They closed the deal a week later.

## When this isn't right

Some sites are genuinely unauditable: behind SSO, IP-allowlisted, or Cloudflare zero-trust gated. For those, screenshot the prospect's homepage manually and write outreach without an audit. Tools like Lighthouse CLI run from your own machine bypass remote bot blocks; that is a fair fallback when LemAudit cannot reach the site at all.

*Category: Troubleshooting*

## Related
- [How do SEO audits work](https://lemaudit.com/help/audits/how-do-seo-audits-work)
- [What are audit limits per plan](https://lemaudit.com/help/billing/what-are-audit-limits-per-plan)
- [The widget isn't showing on my website. What's wrong](https://lemaudit.com/help/troubleshooting/the-widget-isn-t-showing-on-my-website-what-s-wrong)

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For the interactive version visit https://lemaudit.com/help/troubleshooting/an-audit-failed-what-should-i-do