A website is a collection of interlinked Web pages that share a single domain name. They are created and maintained for a variety of purposes. Together, all publicly accessible websites constitute the World Wide Web.
Explaining Websites
Websites come in a nearly endless variety, including educational sites, news sites, porn sites, forums, social media sites, e-commerce sites, and so on. Thus, the pages within a website are usually a mix of text and also of other media. Hence, that said, there are no rules dictating the form of a website.
A person could create a website of nothing but black and white photos of roses, or the word “cat” linked to another Web page with the word “mouse.” However, many sites follow a standard pattern of a homepage that links off to other categories and content within the website.
Website Testing Checklist
Functionality Testing
Test for all the links in web pages, database connection, and forms used. Hence, for submitting or getting information from the user in the web pages, Cookie testing, and many more.
Usability Testing
Usability testing refers to evaluating a product or service by testing it with representative users. Typically, during a test, participants will try to complete typical tasks while observers watch, listen and takes notes. The goal is to identify any usability problems, collect qualitative and quantitative data and determine the participant’s satisfaction with the product.
Interface Testing
In web testing, the server side interface should be tested. Compatibility of the server with software, hardware, network, and the database should be tested.
Compatibility Testing
The compatibility of your website is a very important testing aspect.
- Browser compatibility
- Operating system compatibility
- Mobile browsing
- Printing options
Performance Testing
The web application should sustain to heavy load. Web performance testing should include:
- Web Load Testing
- The Web Stress Testing
Test application performance on different internet connection speed.
Security Testing
Following are some of the test cases for web security testing:
- Test by pasting internal URL directly into the browser address bar without login. Internal pages should not open.
- If you are logged in using username and password. Also in browsing internal pages then try changing URL options directly. I.e. If you are checking some publisher site statistics with publisher site ID= 123. Try directly changing the URL site ID parameter to different site ID which is not related to the logged in user. Access should be denied for this user to view others stats.
- Try some invalid inputs in input fields like login username, password, input text boxes etc. Check the system’s reaction to all invalid inputs.
- Web directories or files should not be accessible directly unless they are given download option.
- Test the CAPTCHA for automating script logins.
- Test if SSL is used for security measures. If it is used, the proper message should get displayed when user switch from non-secure HTTP:// pages to secure HTTPS:// pages and vice versa.
- All transactions, error messages, security breach attempts should get logged in log files somewhere on the web server.
Types of web Testing
Simple Static Website
A simple static website will display the same content for all visitors who are visiting the website at different times. It is also known as an informational website. In a static website, the only developer can do changes that too in code only. This type of website will not have any major functionalities and it purely depends on UI design.
Dynamic Web Application [CMS Website]
It is the type where the user can update and change their website content regularly. From here I am going to use the word “web application testing” instead of dynamic website testing. The web application is a combination of front-end and likewise of back-end programming.
E-commerce Website
An e-commerce website is somewhat complicated when compared to the above two. The tester needs to be very cautious while testing an e-commerce site.
In other words, in the GUI section, you need to check all the features as in SRS and same with the functionality. The functionality will be almost the same for all commercial websites.
Mobile Website
First of all, let us be clear about a mobile website. Generally people think both a mobile website and mobile application to be the same, but in reality, a mobile website is developed with HTML pages and can be viewed only with an internet connection.
But the mobile app is nothing but an application that can be downloaded and used later without an internet connection.
In Conclusion
Web testing, or website testing, is the practice of thoroughly checking over a website or likewise a web application. Either before it has launched or once it is live on the web and accessible to the public.
The general aim of web testing is to find problems, also known as bugs, issues or defects, that might have a negative effect on the website or application. Furthermore, web testing can also be used to discover specific areas or aspects of a website that can be improved and so gain better results, whether that is more inquiries, more sales, more repeat visitors, happier users, or whatever the aim might be.