Text breaks your writing rules

Why it matters

Writing rules only work if they hold on every page, also on the pages somebody wrote in a hurry. Nobody rereads a whole site for that. The standard is your own manual, never a general opinion from Snaglist on what good copy is. Snaglist does not judge tone.

How Snaglist checks it

This check only runs with a brand manual you uploaded and writing rules you confirmed. Without a manual there is no result, and Snaglist asks you to upload one. When it reads the manual, an AI model (Mistral, through its EU address) lists per rule which words and characters that rule forbids. You see that list and can change it. In the crawl, Snaglist searches the title, description and text of every page for them, without AI, so the same site gets the same result every time. Capitals only count if the word in the list has them. A rule for one language only counts on pages in that language. Web addresses and mail addresses do not count. Snaglist does not judge mood or style, such as dry or warm: a rule that names nothing to search for does not count. This check does not cost a crawl any pages.

Snaglist reports this as a notification. It costs 2 percent of the page in the health score. Good to know, and sometimes a deliberate choice.

Common causes

• Copy written before the manual existed
• A page written by somebody who did not know the rules
• Text pasted from an old brochure or from a supplier
• A word in the list that is fine in this context

How to fix it

1. Read the sentence next to the word and the rule in the detail.
2. Rewrite it if you agree.
3. If the word is fine here, take it out of the box at the rule on the site page.

How it shows in the report

In the report for your client this appears under the heading "Sentences that break your own writing rules". When everything is in order, the report says: "No words or characters your manual forbids".