If someone asked you at what grade level your site’s content was written, could you tell them? What about whether it was fully compatible with every major browser? How many seconds it took to load? Can you confidently state that there are no broken links on your site right now?
Although it may seem unimportant to replace an Rich Text apostrophe with the HTML equivalent or to make sure your WHOIS record is perfect, the reality is that the more accessible and polished your website is, the greater chance you have to secure more readership, and, most importantly, more revenue.
If you’re serious about maintaining a well-rounded, efficient website, the cheapest (and perhaps best) way to make sure you’re on the right track is self-evaluation. To get you started, we’ve put together a list containing 31 of our favorite tools for “grading” your website.
Code Validation
The foundation for every website is fundamentally sound source code. Unfortunately programmers aren’t always the most meticulous type of people. They’d rather hash out the difficult stuff and leave the details to someone else, and that’s where code validation comes in. To make sure your website’s source code and features are fully functional you should run it through the following validation tests.
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WDG HTML Validator - EDITOR’S CHOICE - Excellent tool for identifying syntax errors on pages driven by markup languages. Also has an option to recursively check for errors on every page in the website directory.
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W3C Markup Validation Service - Traverses HTML and XHTML markup for syntax errors. Boasts the title of first (and most used) HTML validator on the internet.
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W3C CSS Validation Service - Checks CSS documents for errors in source code. Also gives warnings for code that doesn’t exhibit the best design practices; e.g. “Same colors for color and background-color in two contexts.”
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RUWF? XML Syntax Checker - Checks for malformed data in XML documents.
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W3C Feed Validation Service - Checks the syntax of Atom and RSS feeds for errors.
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W3C Link Checker - EDITOR’S CHOICE - Searches for and identifies broken links. Specifically checks that all the links are dereferenceable, no links and anchors are defined twice and warns about invalid http and directory redirects.
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Juicy Studio Link Analyser - Tests the links on a page for Urls that resolve successfully. Works similar to W3C Link Checker.
Accessibility
All too often we see webmasters designing websites that focus on looking attractive while completely failing to consider the impact of visitor accessibility. Unfortunately, an ineffective or difficult to navigate website is certain to fail, no matter how attractive it is. To make sure your visitors are getting the information they need (and thus becoming repeat visitors), your website should follow various WCAG and section 508 accessibility guidelines.
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Watchfire WebXACT - EDITOR’S CHOICE - A must use tool for all serious designers and developers. Generates a very detailed report on the quality, accessibility and privacy of a website.
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ATRC Web Accessibility Checker - Tests webpages for WCAG 2.0 Level2 compatibility. Generates a report with a series of recommendations for bringing headers, links, metadata, tables and text up to speed.
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WAVE 3.0 Web Accessibility Tool - EDITOR’S CHOICE - Highly customizable tool that uses a graphical model to display website compatibility issues with WCAG 1.0 and section 508.
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TAW Web Accessibility Test - Tests webpages for conflicts with WCAG 1.0 compatibility and reports issues via a graphical model. Generates recommendations based upon WCAG priority model.
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HiSoftware CynthiaSays portal - Uses a very strict policy to test webpages for section 508 and WCAG 1.0 compliance. Reports results in an extremely detailed (yet difficult to read) table.
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HERA Accessibility testing with Style - Uses a very sophisticated and easy to read approach to point out WCAG 1.0 compatibility issues with a particular webpage.
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Juicy Studio CSS Analyser - Performs a color contrast test to make sure your sites CSS color scheme meets WCAG 1.0 requirements.
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Juiciy Studio Readability Test - Analyzes the language on your website based upon the Flesch Reading Ease and Flesch-Kincaid grade level algorithms. Useful for determining if you’re speaking over the head of your readers.
Speed
How fast your website loads is often a key factor in getting visitors to return. In many cases if a visitor has a slow internet connection, they won’t even bother to visit websites dominated by large images, flash files and multimedia documents. To maximize your website’s reach, you’ll need to maintain webpages that can get the job done fast.
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Web Page Analyzer from Website Optimization - EDITOR’S CHOICE - An excellent tool that analyzes a webpage and gives recommendations for decreasing loading time. Focuses on optimizing the number of objects, images and overall size of the webpage.
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WebSitePulse Test Tools - A series of tools for identifying website load times and hostname information.
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Internet Supervision Url Check - Generates load times of your webpage from various servers around the world. Useful for determining if your extended audience is actually receiving your message.
Browser Simulators
Perhaps the most common problem in web development is failing to make sure that a website renders properly for every operating system and browser. Attempting to address the problem manually, however, is never an easy task because developers typically have access to two operating systems (at best) and usually no more than a few browsers. To combat this we recommend you check out the following resources that allow you to see what your website looks like on various platforms.
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Browsershots - Takes screenshots of your website in various browsers and platforms including Firefox and Internet Explorer on Windows, Firefox and Safari on Mac OS X and Iceweasal and Konqueror on Linux. Unfortunately the tool requires you to wait up to three hours in a processing queue before retrieving your screenshots.
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IE NetRenderer - Generates real time screenshots of your website on Internet Explorer versions 5.5, 6.0 and 7.0.
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MobiReady Report – Analyzes your webpage for compatibility issues on a mobile phone. Generates a detailed report on potential viewing problems and offers a glimpse as to what the website would look like on two different types of mobile phone browsers.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Developing a website with an “SEO friendly” model is a sure way to gain an edge on the competition. By making the most out of the following tools, you’ll develop a better understanding of who your audience is and will likely help you come up with more effective ways of appealing to them.
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UrlTrends - EDITOR’S CHOICE - Graphically displays a website’s visitor traffic information by search engine prevalence. Extracts information from Google, Yahoo, MSN, Alexa, AlltheWeb, AltaVista and more.
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iWEBTOOL Backlink Checker - Excellent tool for figuring out which sites are linking to yours, and what part of the site they’re linking to.
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iWEBTOOL Multi-Rank Checker - Neatly displays your pages’ Alexa and Google PageRank stats.
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Microsoft adCenter Labs: Advertising and Keyword Research Tools - EDITOR’S CHOICE - A fantastic set of tools for analyzing and predicting the audience and market of your website.
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Domain Tools Whois lookup - Comprehensive Whois tool that displays all of the standard domain information and calculates the efficiency of a websites markup when seen through the eyes of a search engine spider.
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SEO-Browser - Strips your website of all the “pretty” components to show you how it looks to a search engine. Very useful tool to make sure your design is on the right track.
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SEO Workers SEO Analysis Tool - EDITOR’S CHOICE - Extremely useful tool that analyzes an assortment of page features including meta tags, keyword density and load time.
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Seekport Seekbot - Analyzes a website’s metadata and textual content to determine how effective a search engine would interpret the website.
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SEO Chat SEO Tools - A stock pile of SEO tools for measuring Google AdSense earning potential, keyword density, meta tag effectiveness and much more.
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Marketleap Search Engine Marketing Tools - A group of tools used to analyze the popularity of a particular webpage, how well your site is indexed in search engines and how well you rank for particular keywords.
網(wǎng)站代碼驗(yàn)證
沒(méi)人可以細(xì)致到保證自己的網(wǎng)站代碼都是正確的，你可以通過(guò)以下測(cè)試來(lái)驗(yàn)證網(wǎng)站代碼是否正確。
1 . WDG HTML Validator 一個(gè)很好的工具，能找出網(wǎng)站語(yǔ)法錯(cuò)誤的地方，并標(biāo)注出來(lái)，也可選擇對(duì)網(wǎng)站上單獨(dú)的每一頁(yè)進(jìn)行單頁(yè)分析。（ 強(qiáng)烈推薦 ）
2 . W3C Markup Validation Service 對(duì) HTML 和 XHTML 都能進(jìn)行代碼測(cè)試，自稱是互聯(lián)網(wǎng)絡(luò)上第一個(gè)（也是使用者最多的）的 HTML 驗(yàn)證工具。
3 . W3C CSS Validation Service 用于驗(yàn)證 css 源代碼，能夠標(biāo)注出不好的 css 代碼設(shè)計(jì)。例如：“Same colors for color and background-color in two contexts”。
4 . RUWF XML Syntax Checker 用于查找 XML 文件的錯(cuò)誤。
5 . W3C Feed Validation Service 用于查找 Atom 和 RSS feed 中的錯(cuò)誤語(yǔ)法。（ 這個(gè)我經(jīng)常用到 ）
6 . W3C Link Checker 用于搜尋查明你網(wǎng)站內(nèi)的所有鏈接里是否有斷鏈。（ 強(qiáng)烈推薦 ）
7 . Juicy Studio Link Analyser 測(cè)試網(wǎng)站內(nèi)的鏈接的 URL 是否存在死鏈，與 W3C Link Checker 很類似。
網(wǎng)站的使用性
我們常�？吹骄W(wǎng)站設(shè)計(jì)者把重點(diǎn)放在怎網(wǎng)站的吸引力上，而完全不考慮會(huì)不會(huì)影響來(lái)訪者的使用，一個(gè)瀏覽難度很大的網(wǎng)頁(yè)是注定要失敗，要讓你的來(lái)訪者方便的得到他要的信息（從而成為重復(fù)訪客），你的網(wǎng)站應(yīng)當(dāng)遵循 WCAG section 508 易用性規(guī)則。
8 . Watchfire WebXACT 所有嚴(yán)謹(jǐn)?shù)脑O(shè)計(jì)師和開(kāi)發(fā)者都必須使用的工具，它會(huì)生成一個(gè)非常詳盡的報(bào)告書(shū)，包括：網(wǎng)站質(zhì)量，易用性和隱私等。（ 強(qiáng)烈推薦 ）
9 . ATRC Web Accessibility Checker 測(cè)試網(wǎng)站的 WCAG 2.0 Level2 兼容性，它會(huì)生成一份報(bào)告，提出一系列建議，如：如何提升頁(yè)頭，鏈接，數(shù)據(jù)，圖表和文字的訪問(wèn)速度。
10 . WAVE 3.0 Web Accessibility Tool 高度可定制的工具，它采用了圖形化模型展示網(wǎng)站兼容性問(wèn)題（ WCAG 1.0 and section 508 ）。（ 強(qiáng)烈推薦 ）
11 . TAW Web Accessibility Test 測(cè)試網(wǎng)頁(yè)是否存在沖突（ WCAG 1.0 兼容性 ），通過(guò)圖形模式生成一份依據(jù) wcag 優(yōu)先模式為基礎(chǔ)的網(wǎng)站修改建議。
12 . HiSoftware CynthiaSays portal 采用了非常嚴(yán)格的規(guī)則來(lái)測(cè)試網(wǎng)頁(yè)（ 根據(jù) section 508 和 WCAG 1.0 規(guī)則 ），生成的報(bào)告也極為詳細(xì)（ 詳細(xì)到很難看懂 ）。
13 . HERA Accessibility testing with Style 使用一種極為復(fù)雜但容易理解方式指出網(wǎng)頁(yè)的 wcag1.0 兼容性問(wèn)題。
14 . Juicy Studio CSS Analyser 進(jìn)行了色彩對(duì)比測(cè)試，以確保你的網(wǎng)站的色調(diào)會(huì)符合 WCAG 1.0 的要求。
15 . Juiciy Studio Readability Test 分析你網(wǎng)站上的文字是否有語(yǔ)法錯(cuò)誤或拼寫(xiě)錯(cuò)誤等問(wèn)題，容易讓人理解不（ 根據(jù) the Flesch Reading Ease 和 Flesch-Kincaid grade level algorithms 規(guī)則 ）。（ 適合英文網(wǎng)站使用 ）
網(wǎng)站的速度
打開(kāi)你的網(wǎng)站的速度快慢，是來(lái)訪者會(huì)不會(huì)再次訪問(wèn)網(wǎng)站的關(guān)鍵因素，在一般情況下，一個(gè)網(wǎng)絡(luò)不是很快的來(lái)訪者是不愿意訪問(wèn)一個(gè)充滿著圖片、flash 動(dòng)畫(huà)、多媒體文件的網(wǎng)站。為了使你的網(wǎng)站覆蓋人群的范圍最大化，你必須優(yōu)化你的網(wǎng)站，使它的打開(kāi)速度盡可能的快。
16 . Web Page Analyzer from Website Optimization 一個(gè)很好的工具，它在分析完一個(gè)網(wǎng)頁(yè)后，會(huì)為減少加載時(shí)間提出優(yōu)化建議，著重優(yōu)化物體的數(shù)目，圖片和網(wǎng)站的總體大小。（ 強(qiáng)烈推薦 ）
17 . WebSitePulse Test Tools 有一系列的工具來(lái)確定網(wǎng)站的加載速度和主機(jī)信息。
18 . Internet Supervision Url Check 從世界各地不同的服務(wù)器來(lái)測(cè)試你的網(wǎng)站的加載時(shí)間，用于確定是不是各地的來(lái)訪者都能順利快速的打開(kāi)你得網(wǎng)站。
瀏覽器模擬工具
這是一個(gè)普遍的問(wèn)題，因?yàn)楝F(xiàn)在有著很多的操作系統(tǒng)和瀏覽器，你得網(wǎng)站必須得兼容它們，但這絕不是一件容易的事。通過(guò)下列工具，你可以了解你得網(wǎng)站在各種瀏覽器上的顯示效果。
19 . Browsershots 能給出你的網(wǎng)站在不同瀏覽器下顯示效果的截圖，包括：Firefox 和 Internet Explorer （ Windows ）、Firefox 和 Safari （ Mac OS X ）、Iceweasal 和 Konqueror （ Linux ），但是結(jié)果要在 1 - 3 小時(shí)后才能出來(lái)。
20 . IE NetRenderer 實(shí)時(shí)生成你的網(wǎng)站在 Internet Explorer 5.5 、6.0 和 7.0 下的截圖。
21 . MobiReady Report 分析使用手機(jī)訪問(wèn)網(wǎng)頁(yè)的兼容性問(wèn)題，會(huì)生成一份詳細(xì)的報(bào)告，并提供了在兩種不同類型的手機(jī)瀏覽器上你得網(wǎng)站可能顯示的樣子。
搜索引擎優(yōu)化 (SEO)
一個(gè)網(wǎng)站，如果對(duì)搜索引擎有著比較好的友好度，一定會(huì)比較有競(jìng)爭(zhēng)力。
22 . UrlTrends 會(huì)顯示網(wǎng)站的訪客是如何通過(guò)搜索引擎來(lái)到你的網(wǎng)站，還有各個(gè)流量是多少。這些數(shù)據(jù)是包括 Google, Yahoo, MSN, Alexa, AlltheWeb, AltaVista 和其他一些網(wǎng)站。（ 強(qiáng)烈推薦 ）
23 . iWEBTOOL Backlink Checker 一個(gè)很好的工具，它能找出有什么站點(diǎn)鏈接到你的站點(diǎn)，那些站點(diǎn)是什么類型的站點(diǎn)。
24 . iWEBTOOL Multi-Rank Checker 顯示你網(wǎng)站的 Alexa 和 Google PageRank 數(shù)值。
25 . Microsoft adCenter Labs: Advertising and Keyword Research Tools 一個(gè)極好的工具，用于分析和預(yù)測(cè)你網(wǎng)站的來(lái)訪者和市場(chǎng)。（ 強(qiáng)烈推薦 ）
26 . Domain Tools Whois lookup 一個(gè) WHOIS 網(wǎng)絡(luò)工具。
27 . SEO-Browser 可以讓你看到在搜索引擎眼里一樣的網(wǎng)站（ 去掉所有的”美麗”配件 ）。
28 . SEO Workers SEO Analysis Tool 非常有用的工具，分析了網(wǎng)站上的各種分類特征，包括 meta 標(biāo)簽、關(guān)鍵字密度及加載時(shí)間。（ 強(qiáng)烈推薦 ）
29 . Seekport Seekbot 可以分析網(wǎng)站的數(shù)據(jù)和內(nèi)容，以得出搜索引擎會(huì)如何有效的解釋分析的網(wǎng)站。
30 . SEO Chat SEO Tools 用以分析網(wǎng)站 Google adsense 盈利潛力，關(guān)鍵字密度，Meta tag 等等……
31 . Marketleap Search Engine Marketing Tools 用來(lái)分析網(wǎng)頁(yè)，讓你知道你的網(wǎng)站檢索、設(shè)定的關(guān)鍵字好不好。