Understanding the Site Quality Report in Compliance Detector

​New to AvePoint Compliance Guardian in Service Pack (SP) 1 is the Site Quality Test suite. The Site Quality Test suite provides testing coverage for some of the most important concerns of any site or content owner. The test suite include checks for:

· File properties concerns

· Structural concerns

· Mobile best practices

· Brand protection alerts

· Search engine optimization (SEO) factors

These combined quality factors help owners of web sites and brand managers assure that their site and content is working as designed, is structurally sound, and follows industry as well as company specific quality standards. Organizations who are interested in putting their sites to the test and learning about any potential site quality issues they are facing can do so by using Compliance Detector. It is important to acknowledge that Compliance Detector is an educational solution, and if you need to customize these values for your specific customer or organization you can do so with AvePoint Compliance Guardian, which is the product that powers Compliance Detector. The main parts of Compliance Detector’s Site Quality Report are divided into three sections – Mobile Best Practices, Brand Protection, and SEO – which are detailed below:

Mobile Best Practices

Mobile best practices are a combined set of checks that let you know to some degree of certainty how visitors will experience your site via their mobile devices. Compliance Detector has eight specific tests in this group covering 10 specific rules.

· M.1 File Properties – This check validates that the document size does not exceed 100 kilobytes, and if it does it will issue a warning.

· M.2. Separate Presentation from Data – This check group validates that the content (data) and presentation are separated, meaning tags like Bold, Italic, and Big should not be included in the content, but external style sheets should be referenced.

· M.3. Images require the height attribute – Defining the height attribute of an image presents the least chance of disturbing the user experience.

· M.4. Images require the width attribute – Defining the width attribute of an image presents the least chance of disturbing the user experience.

· M.5. Doctype is required – Including a Document Type Declaration allows for the optimization capabilities of browsers as related to parsing of content

· M.6. Avoid Pop-Ups – Creating pop-ups disorients users and some devices may not handle them properly.

· M.8. Do not use style tag – The use of the style tag is not recommended, as it is better to separate data and style by using an external style sheet.

The Majority of these tags are set to warn if the condition is found, but please note, the warning is that the content being tested may not work properly on a mobile device, and this is not a good thing. If your content management system or site uses a specific mobile landing page like “http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page”, point compliance detector to the mobile specific page to test the mobile best practices.

Brand Protection

Brand protection is unique to each company and will likely require some customization. However, Compliance Detector tests on several factors upon which we can all agree are important. This includes the fact that certain language should not be used, certain URLs should be denied access, and there should be no site or content structural defects. With Compliance Detector, there are three main rules:

· B.1. Disallowed Word List – Ensure that none of the disallowed words appear in the content. In Compliance Detector, we use a disallowed word listing related to profanity.

· B.2. Disallowed URL List – Ensure that none of the disallowed URLs appear in the content. In Compliance Detector, we use a URL black list.

· B.3. Link Quality – Broken URLs provide poor user experience. In this rule, we test for broken links and bookmarks of any type to protect from broken links, bookmarks, missing images or other source targets.

With Compliance Detector, the amount of generic branding that we can test is limited and primarily serves educational purposes, but with AvePoint Compliance Guardian you can add limitless checks to protect all of your brand quality factors. For example, you can assure that the same header is used for consistent trademark presentation. Anything that you have specified as a brand rule can be tested.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

SEO is always a hot topic and there are many factors that determine how websites are listed in the global search indexes. In Compliance Detector, we have populated the SEO test suite with ten of the primary search engine optimization quality checks.

· S.1. http-equiv refresh – Identify Meta Refresh and, if used, fail the page because it decreases search engine effectiveness. The use of “http-equiv refresh” is discouraged by the standards bodies.

· S.2. http-equiv keywords – Identify “http-equiv” keywords and, if found, fail the page. This position is taken because a common way to try to “fool” search engines is to stuff keywords in elements that do not need keywords or that represent duplication. “Http-equiv Keywords” are a duplication of “Meta name=keywords” and are viewed as an attempt at trickery.

· S.3. http-equiv description – Identify “http-equiv description” and, if found, fail the page. This position is taken because a common way to try to “fool” search engines is to stuff keywords in elements that do not need keywords or that represent duplication. “Http-equiv description” is a duplication of “Meta name=description” and is viewed as an attempt at trickery.

· S.4. Title Tag Quality – Page title length must be less than 70 Characters and not repeat words more than three times. Title tags should have specific quality, and that is why the check identifies bad quality title tags.

· S.5. Description Tag Quality – “Meta Name=Description” must exist, be less than 150 characters, and not deploy keyword stuffing tactics.

· S.6. Keyword Tag Quality – “Meta Name=keywords” must exist, be less than 150 characters, and not deploy keyword stuffing tactics.

· S.7 H1 Tag must be used – All HTML pages must use at least one H1 Tag.

· S.8 URLs should be absolute – URLs should be absolute and not relative for all links to content.

· S.9 Anchor Text Quality – Anchor Text should be greater than four characters and should include meaningful text instead of words and phrases such as “more information”, “more”, “read more”, “click here”, and “click*”. Null Text is not allowed

· S.10 Image Alt Text Quality – Images Alternative Text Quality Check must pass as well.

In each checkpoint of the Compliance Detector report, you are always one link away from more information and guidance to tell you why something passes and or fails and how you can meet specific requirements. For example S.10. Links to the W3C Guide on Alternative Text: http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20/#text-equiv.

More Information

You can read more about SEO, mobile best practices, and brand quality at these resources:

1. Wikipedia SEO: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_engine_optimization

2. Bing Webmaster Guidelines: http://www.bing.com/webmaster/help/webmaster-guidelines-30fba23a

3. Google Webmaster Guidelines: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/35769?hl=en

4. Yahoo Webmaster Guidelines: http://help.yahoo.com/kb/index?locale=en_US&page=content&y=PROD_SRCH&id=SLN2245

5. W3C Mobile Best Practices: http://www.w3.org/TR/mobile-bp/#d0e959

6. Word Filters: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wordfilter

7. Blacklists: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blacklist_(computing)

8. AvePoint Compliance Guardian: https://www.avepoint.com/compliance-guardian/

The Site Quality Reports of Compliance Detector represent a continued commitment by AvePoint to serve both site and content creators from both a technical and business goal perspectives. Please remember that Compliance Detector is a community project and we welcome all feedback. Please send any feedback to ComplianceDetector@AvePoint.com.