Ethical SEO (Sustainability Metrics)
Track and display your website's environmental impact with carbon footprint metrics, sustainability ratings, and green web optimization recommendations
Overview
ProRank SEO's Ethical SEO feature provides comprehensive sustainability metrics and carbon footprint tracking for environmentally conscious websites. It calculates real-time carbon emissions, provides industry comparisons, and offers actionable recommendations to reduce your site's environmental impact.
Using the Website Carbon API and advanced page analysis, this feature helps you measure, monitor, and improve your website's sustainability while displaying your commitment to the environment through customizable badges.
Business+ Feature
Key Features
Sustainability Metrics
- Real-time carbon footprint calculation
- Sustainability ratings (A+ to F)
- Green hosting detection
- Page weight optimization analysis
- Environmental impact tracking
Optimization Features
- Image optimization recommendations
- CSS/JS bundle size analysis
- Third-party script impact tracking
- CDN usage detection
- Sustainability badge for frontend
Getting Started
1. Enable Ethical SEO
Navigate to ProRank SEO → Technical SEO → Ethical SEO and enable the experimental features:
- Toggle on "Enable Experimental Ethical SEO Features"
- Enable "Display Sustainability Metrics" to activate carbon tracking
- Configure your optimization preferences
- Save your settings
2. Calculate Your Site Score
Once enabled, click "Calculate Score" to analyze your site's sustainability:
- Analyzes multiple pages for comprehensive scoring
- Provides CO₂ emissions per page view
- Shows comparison with industry standards
- Generates sustainability grade (A+ to F)
3. Display Sustainability Badge
Show your environmental commitment with the sustainability badge:
- Enable "Show Sustainability Badge" for automatic display
- Badge appears in bottom-right corner of all pages
- Or use shortcode for manual placement
Understanding Metrics
Carbon Footprint (CO₂ per view)
Measures the amount of CO₂ produced each time someone views a page on your website:
- A+ (Under 0.5g): Excellent - equivalent to a grain of rice
- A (0.5-1g): Very Good - like boiling water for tea
- B (1-1.5g): Good - similar to charging a smartphone
- C (1.5-2g): Average - industry standard
- D (2-3g): Below Average - needs improvement
- F (Over 3g): Poor - significant optimization needed
Page Size Impact
Page size directly correlates with energy consumption and carbon emissions:
- Under 1MB: Optimal for sustainability
- 1-2MB: Acceptable with room for improvement
- 2-3MB: Consider optimization
- Over 3MB: High priority for optimization
Green Hosting
Using renewable energy powered hosting can reduce carbon emissions by up to 80%:
- Automatically detects known green hosting providers
- Manual setting available for certified green hosts
- Improves overall sustainability rating
- Displayed in badge when enabled
Sustainability Badge
Automatic Display
When enabled, the badge automatically appears in the bottom-right corner with:
- Sustainability grade (A+ to F)
- CO₂ emissions per page view
- Cleaner than X% of websites
- Green hosting indicator (if applicable)
- Expandable details on click
- Auto-fades after 30 seconds, reappears on hover
Shortcode Usage
Place the badge anywhere using shortcodes:
[prorank_sustainability_badge]
[prorank_sustainability_badge style="minimal"]
[prorank_sustainability_badge style="detailed"]
Widget Areas
Add the shortcode to various locations:
- Footer widgets
- Sidebar widgets
- Page/post content
- Header areas
- Custom HTML blocks
Optimization Recommendations
Image Optimization
- • Use WebP or AVIF formats for better compression
- • Implement lazy loading for below-fold images
- • Serve responsive images with srcset
- • Compress images without quality loss
- • Use CDN for image delivery
Code Optimization
- • Minify CSS and JavaScript files
- • Remove unused CSS and JS code
- • Implement code splitting
- • Use browser caching effectively
- • Enable GZIP/Brotli compression
Third-Party Scripts
- • Audit and remove unnecessary scripts
- • Load scripts asynchronously when possible
- • Self-host critical third-party resources
- • Use facade patterns for heavy embeds
- • Implement script loading priorities
Green Hosting
- • Choose hosting providers using renewable energy
- • Look for Green Web Foundation certification
- • Consider carbon-neutral data centers
- • Enable the green hosting option if applicable
Settings Configuration
Core Settings
Enable Experimental Ethical SEO Features
Master toggle to activate all sustainability tracking features.
Display Sustainability Metrics
Shows carbon footprint data in post meta boxes and enables tracking.
Show Sustainability Badge
Displays the sustainability rating badge on your site's frontend.
Auto-calculate Sustainability Scores
Automatically calculates metrics for all pages (may impact performance).
Optimization Analysis
Analyze Image Optimization
Tracks unoptimized images and calculates their carbon impact.
Track Third-Party Scripts
Monitors external scripts and their environmental impact.
My Site Uses Green Hosting
Enable if your hosting provider uses renewable energy.
API Integration
ProRank SEO uses the Website Carbon API to calculate emissions based on:
- Actual page size in bytes
- Energy intensity of web data
- Carbon intensity of electricity
- Website traffic estimates
API Limitations
Troubleshooting
Badge Not Showing
- ✓ Ensure "Display Sustainability Metrics" is enabled
- ✓ Verify "Show Sustainability Badge" is toggled on
- ✓ Check that the main Ethical SEO feature is enabled
- ✓ Clear your site cache after enabling
- ✓ Try using the shortcode for manual placement
Inaccurate Metrics
- ✓ Click "Clear Cache" to refresh calculations
- ✓ Ensure your site is publicly accessible
- ✓ Check if green hosting setting matches your provider
- ✓ Wait for cache to expire (1 hour) for updates
API Errors
- ✓ Feature uses fallback calculations if API fails
- ✓ Default page size (1.5MB) used if actual size unavailable
- ✓ Check error logs for specific issues
- ✓ Contact support if errors persist
Best Practices
Regular Monitoring
Calculate your sustainability score monthly to track improvements and identify regressions.
Optimize Images First
Images typically account for 50-70% of page weight. Focus optimization efforts here for maximum impact.
Display Your Commitment
Use the sustainability badge to show visitors your environmental consciousness and build trust.
Set Improvement Goals
Aim to reduce CO₂ emissions by 10-20% each quarter through continuous optimization.
Consider Green Hosting
Switching to renewable energy hosting is the single most impactful change for sustainability.