Founders often optimize the homepage until it looks perfect, then wonder why category or blog URLs never appear in Search Console. Search engines rank URLs, not brands — and most of your URL inventory is not the homepage.
Template bugs multiply. A missing H1 on the blog layout, a self-canonical pointing at the wrong host, or a meta description that concatenates the same string on every post will fail hundreds of times for the price of one code mistake.
Internal links are another homepage blind spot. If important pages are only reachable from JavaScript menus or PDF sitemaps, HTML crawlers (and many SEO tools) under-count them. A site crawl that follows real <a href> links surfaces that gap.
Performance and security headers also vary by route. A fast homepage behind a CDN does not guarantee your app routes return the same Cache-Control, HSTS, or CSP behavior.
Treat the homepage as a demo of quality, then prove the same standards on the templates that generate traffic. That is the difference between a vanity score and a ranking system.