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Website audit
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universal_website_audit.md

Universal Website Technical Audit Checklist

Comprehensive audit for any website

πŸ“‹ Pre-Audit Setup

  • Determine website type (corporate, e-commerce, blog, landing page, portal)
  • Get access to website for testing
  • Obtain final design mockups (Figma, Adobe XD, Sketch)
  • Obtain final technical specification - Review and understand all requirements
  • Verify all iterations implemented - Check that all requested changes are implemented
  • Get source code access - Repository access and all source code
  • Obtain documentation - Installation, deployment, and admin instructions
  • Verify domain ownership - Domain registered under client, not contractor
  • Verify hosting ownership - Hosting under client with full access rights
  • Prepare testing tools:
    • Pixel Perfect plugins: PerfectPixel, PixelParallel, Similar
    • Browsers: Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Edge
    • Devices: Mobile, tablets, desktops
    • SEO tools: Screaming Frog, SEMrush, Ahrefs
    • Analytics: Google Analytics, ЯндСкс.ΠœΠ΅Ρ‚Ρ€ΠΈΠΊΠ°
    • Load testing tools: ApacheBench, k6, JMeter
  • Gather information about target audience and business goals
  • Define audit priorities (critical/important/desirable)
  • Check popular screen resolutions in Google Analytics

🎨 1. DESIGN AND USER EXPERIENCE AUDIT

Visual Components

  • Design mockup compliance - Check exact compliance with final mockups
  • Pixel Perfect testing - Use PerfectPixel, PixelParallel or Similar plugins for precise comparison
  • Color scheme - Ensure consistent color usage (HEX, RGB values)
  • Logo and branding - Check proper placement, sizes and quality
  • Typography - Check fonts, sizes, line spacing, readability
  • Visual hierarchy - Ensure logical highlighting of important elements
  • Spacing and alignment - Check accuracy of spacing according to mockups (px, rem, em)

Layout and Structure

  • Page structure - Check logical block composition
  • Margins and padding - Ensure proper spacing intervals
  • Element alignment - Check neatness of positioning
  • Image proportions - Ensure correct aspect ratios
  • White spaces - Check proper use of empty space

User Experience (UX)

  • Navigation intuitiveness - Evaluate clarity of site structure
  • Task completion speed - Check efficiency of user scenarios
  • Information accessibility - Ensure ease of finding needed information
  • Feedback - Check clarity of system messages
  • Overall usability - Evaluate comfort of site usage

πŸ“± 2. RESPONSIVE DESIGN AUDIT

Device Testing (based on popular resolutions from Google Analytics)

  • Mobile devices:
    • iPhone 12/13/14 (390x844) - Most popular mobile devices
    • iPhone SE (375x667) - Compact iPhones
    • Samsung Galaxy S21 (360x800) - Popular Android devices
    • Google Pixel (412x915) - Android devices
  • Tablets:
    • iPad (768x1024) - Standard tablets
    • iPad Pro (834x1194) - Large tablets
    • Android tablets (800x1280) - Android tablets
  • Desktops:
    • 1366x768 - Most popular laptop resolution
    • 1920x1080 - Standard Full HD
    • 1440x900 - MacBook resolutions
    • 1536x864 - Popular laptops
    • 2560x1440 - 2K monitors
    • 3840x2160 - 4K monitors

Responsive Elements

  • Navigation menu - Check functionality on all devices
  • Images - Ensure correct scaling
  • Forms - Check usability on mobile devices
  • Buttons and links - Ensure adequate size for touch
  • Text - Check readability on all screen sizes

Mobile Performance

  • Loading speed - Check speed on mobile networks
  • Data usage - Evaluate traffic volume
  • Device battery - Check impact on power consumption
  • Screen orientation - Ensure correct portrait/landscape functionality

πŸ–ΌοΈ 3. MEDIA AND CONTENT AUDIT

Images

  • Image quality - Check sharpness and clarity
  • Size optimization - Ensure compression without quality loss
  • File formats - Check use of modern formats (WebP, AVIF)
  • Lazy loading - Ensure lazy loading of images
  • Alt-texts - Check descriptions for all images

Video and audio

  • Video playback - Check player functionality
  • Video responsiveness - Ensure scaling
  • Subtitles - Check availability and correctness
  • Player controls - Ensure functionality
  • Autoplay - Check autoplay settings

Text content

  • Spelling and punctuation - Check text grammar
  • Content structure - Ensure logical construction
  • Information relevance - Check data freshness
  • Content uniqueness - Ensure no duplication
  • SEO text optimization - Check keyword usage

πŸ”— 4. NAVIGATION AND INTERFACE AUDIT

Navigation structure

  • Main menu - Check all links and their functionality
  • Breadcrumbs - Ensure correct display
  • Site search - Check search functionality
  • Filters and sorting - If applicable, check their operation
  • Pagination - Check page navigation

Interactive elements

  • Buttons and links - Check all clickable elements
  • Dropdown menus - Ensure correct operation
  • Modal windows - Check opening and closing
  • Tabs and accordions - Ensure switching functionality
  • Sliders and carousels - Check functionality

Forms and interactivity

  • All forms on website - Test each form
  • Field validation - Test validation of entered data
  • Data submission - Ensure correct data submission
  • Confirmations - Check success notifications
  • Error handling - Check error messages

⚑ 5. PERFORMANCE AUDIT

Loading speed

  • Main page load time - Measure loading speed
  • Internal pages load time - Check all key pages
  • Time to First Byte (TTFB) - Check server response time
  • Time to Interactive (TTI) - Measure readiness for interaction
  • Full page load - Check complete page load time

Core Web Vitals

  • Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) - Should be < 2.5s
  • First Input Delay (FID) - Should be < 100ms
  • Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) - Should be < 0.1
  • First Contentful Paint (FCP) - Should be < 1.8s
  • Speed Index - Evaluate speed index

Resource optimization

  • Image compression - Check image optimization
  • CSS/JS minification - Ensure code compression
  • Caching - Check caching configuration
  • CDN - If used, check functionality
  • HTTP/2 - Ensure modern protocol usage

Load testing

  • Load testing conducted - ApacheBench/k6 testing performed
  • Handles 10-20 concurrent requests - No performance degradation
  • Response time within norm - < 2 seconds under normal load
  • Stress testing - Test under maximum expected load
  • Memory usage - Check for memory leaks under load

🌐 6. BROWSER COMPATIBILITY AUDIT

Main browsers

  • Google Chrome (latest version) - Full testing
  • Mozilla Firefox (latest version) - Check compatibility
  • Safari (latest version) - Test on macOS
  • Microsoft Edge (latest version) - Ensure correct operation
  • Mobile browsers - Check on iOS Safari and Chrome Mobile

Specific checks

  • Font rendering - Check in different browsers
  • JavaScript functionality - Ensure correct script operation
  • CSS compatibility - Check styles in all browsers
  • Form functionality - Test form submission
  • Media content - Check video/audio playback

Backward compatibility

  • Older browser versions - Check support (if needed)
  • Fallback for new features - Ensure backup options
  • Graceful degradation - Check functionality degradation

πŸ”’ 7. SECURITY AUDIT

SSL and encryption

  • SSL certificate - Ensure correct HTTPS operation
  • TLS protocol - Check use of current version
  • Mixed content - Ensure no HTTP resources on HTTPS
  • HSTS - Check forced HTTPS configuration

Attack protection

  • Security headers - Check CSP, X-Frame-Options, etc.
  • XSS protection - Ensure user input filtering
  • CSRF protection - Check tokens in forms
  • SQL injection - Ensure database protection
  • Rate limiting - Check request limitations

Administrative security

  • Admin panel protection - Check access to administrative sections
  • Strong passwords - Ensure password requirements
  • Two-factor authentication - If applicable, check operation
  • Logging - Check security log maintenance

πŸ“Š 8. SEO AND TECHNICAL OPTIMIZATION AUDIT

Technical SEO

  • Title tags - Check unique and descriptive titles (50-60 characters)
  • Meta descriptions - Ensure presence and quality of descriptions (150-160 characters)
  • Meta keywords - Check presence and relevance of keywords
  • H1-H6 tags - Check proper heading hierarchy
  • Structured data - Check Schema.org markup (JSON-LD)
  • Canonical tags - Ensure proper canonicalization
  • Meta robots - Check indexing directives
  • Language attributes - Ensure page language specification

Open Graph and social networks

  • og:title - Check titles for social networks
  • og:description - Ensure descriptions for social networks
  • og:image - Check images for previews (1200x630px)
  • og:url - Ensure correct URLs for social networks
  • og:type - Check content type (website, article, product)
  • og:site_name - Ensure site name specification
  • Twitter Cards - Check Twitter Card markup
  • LinkedIn meta tags - Ensure LinkedIn correctness

Files and settings

  • Robots.txt - Check correct configuration and availability
  • Sitemap.xml - Ensure sitemap is current and correct
  • Sitemap index - If applicable, check sitemap index
  • Image sitemap - Check image sitemap (if applicable)
  • Video sitemap - Check video sitemap (if applicable)
  • URL structure - Check logic and readability of URLs
  • Redirects - Ensure correct 301/302 redirects
  • 404 page - Check custom error page
  • URL parameters - Check UTM and other parameter handling

Content SEO

  • Keyword density - Check natural usage (1-3%)
  • LSI keywords - Ensure use of semantically related words
  • Internal linking - Ensure logical connections between pages
  • Anchor text - Check link text relevance
  • External links - Check quality and relevance
  • Nofollow attributes - Ensure proper usage
  • Images - Ensure search optimization (Alt, Title, size)
  • Local SEO - If applicable, check local optimization
  • Multilingual - Check hreflang tags (if applicable)

Additional SEO elements

  • Favicon - Check presence and correctness of favicon
  • Apple touch icons - Ensure iOS icons
  • Manifest.json - Check web manifest (for PWA)
  • AMP pages - If applicable, check AMP correctness
  • Breadcrumbs - Check navigation breadcrumbs
  • FAQ markup - If applicable, check structured data
  • Review markup - Check review markup (if applicable)
  • LocalBusiness markup - For local business

πŸ“ˆ 9. ANALYTICS AND TRACKING AUDIT

Analytics setup

  • Google Analytics - Check correct GA4 setup
  • Google Tag Manager - Ensure proper GTM setup
  • Yandex.Metrica - If used, check setup
  • Facebook Pixel - If used, check integration
  • Other analytics systems - Check all connected systems

Event tracking

  • Form tracking - Check event sending when forms are filled
  • Click tracking - Ensure correct tracking
  • Page view tracking - Check page view counting
  • E-commerce tracking - If applicable, check e-commerce tracking
  • Conversions - Ensure proper goal setup

Data quality

  • Spam filtering - Check bot filtering settings
  • Traffic segmentation - Ensure proper source separation
  • Attribution - Check conversion attribution correctness
  • Retargeting - If configured, check pixel correctness

πŸ”— 10. LINKS AND NAVIGATION AUDIT

Internal links

  • All menu links - Check functionality
  • Content links - Ensure internal link correctness
  • Footer links - Check all footer links
  • Contextual links - Ensure relevance
  • Navigation elements - Check navigation logic

External links

  • External site links - Check functionality
  • Social networks - Ensure link correctness
  • Partner links - If applicable, check them
  • Document links - Check file availability
  • Phone links - Check call functionality

Broken links

  • 404 error scanning - Conduct full scanning
  • Redirect checking - Ensure redirect chain correctness
  • Temporary links - Check temporary link relevance
  • Archive links - Ensure archive material availability

πŸš€ 11. INFRASTRUCTURE AND DEPLOYMENT AUDIT

Version control system

  • Git repository with full history - All commits preserved
  • Clean commit history - Logical commit messages
  • Organized branches - Main/master, develop, feature branches

Documentation

  • Installation instructions - Detailed deployment guide
  • Update procedures - System update procedures
  • Administrator guide - Administration manual

Environments

  • Staging environment - Test environment for checks
  • Production environment - Production environment configured
  • CI/CD configured - If automated deployment was promised

Configuration

  • Configuration files externalized - .env files with settings
  • Secrets not in code - Passwords and keys in environment variables
  • Different settings for different environments - Staging/Production configurations

Backup and recovery

  • Backups working - Automatic backup system
  • Recovery testing - Verified ability to restore from backup
  • Backup storage - Secure backup storage

Monitoring

  • Monitoring configured - If provided, monitoring system works
  • Alerts configured - Critical event notifications
  • Logging working - Error and event logging

πŸ“ 12. HANDOVER AND WARRANTY AUDIT

Documentation and contracts

  • Acceptance document signed - Official acceptance document
  • Warranty period fixed - Written warranty period
  • Support terms defined - Clear support conditions

Contacts and support

  • Developer contact - Contact for code-related questions
  • Code documentation - Code comments and technical documentation
  • Support plan - Defined support procedures

Financial matters

  • All payments completed - All financial calculations finished
  • Contract fulfilled - All contract points completed
  • No outstanding issues - No unresolved questions

πŸ“‹ 13. FINAL CHECKS AND READINESS

General functionality

  • All main functions work - Conduct final testing
  • No critical errors - Ensure no blocking issues
  • User scenarios - Test key user paths
  • Performance - Ensure acceptable speed
  • Security - Check all security aspects

Readiness for launch

  • All pages accessible - Check accessibility of all sections
  • Forms work correctly - Test all forms
  • Media files load - Ensure correct loading
  • Analytics configured - Check tracking setup
  • SEO elements in place - Ensure all meta tags present

Final visual check

  • Search navigation - Search for information on site
  • Page transitions - Navigation logic
  • Contact forms - Site feedback functionality
  • Payment/ordering - If applicable, complete purchase cycle
  • Registration/authorization - If applicable, login process
  • User account - If applicable, all account functions

Mobile testing

  • Manual mobile check - Testing on real device
  • Touch and swipes - Check mobile gestures
  • Screen orientation - Portrait and landscape orientation
  • Mobile speed - Performance on mobile networks

Testing without cache

  • Incognito check - Testing in private mode
  • No cache check - Clear cache and re-check
  • Different devices check - Testing on multiple devices

Accessibility

  • Lighthouse accessibility audit - Check via Google Lighthouse
  • Wave audit - Check via WebAIM Wave
  • Keyboard navigation - Navigation using only keyboard
  • Color contrast - Compliance with WCAG standards

Monitoring and support

  • Monitoring systems - Set up availability tracking
  • Error logging - Ensure log maintenance
  • Backup - Check backup settings
  • Support plan - Define technical support procedures

πŸ“ AUDIT REPORT TEMPLATE

Issues found

Priority Issue Page/Component Status Notes
Critical
High
Medium
Low

Overall site assessment

  • Design and UX: [Score 1-10]
  • Performance: [Score 1-10]
  • Functionality: [Score 1-10]
  • Security: [Score 1-10]
  • SEO: [Score 1-10]
  • Responsiveness: [Score 1-10]
  • Compatibility: [Score 1-10]
  • Analytics: [Score 1-10]

Improvement recommendations

  • Design: [Specific recommendations]
  • Performance: [Optimization suggestions]
  • Functionality: [Interface improvements]
  • Security: [Protection measures]
  • SEO: [Search engine optimization]
  • UX: [User experience improvements]

Post-audit actions

  • Immediately: Fix critical issues
  • Within a week: Resolve high priority issues
  • Within a month: Address medium priority issues
  • In plans: Implement low priority improvements
  • Monitoring: Set up key metrics tracking

πŸ“… AUDIT EXECUTION PLAN

Day 1: Design and user experience

  • Pixel Perfect design mockup compliance check
  • Typography and color scheme audit
  • User experience evaluation
  • Testing on popular screen resolutions

Day 2: Responsiveness and compatibility

  • Testing on different devices
  • Browser compatibility checks
  • Mobile version audit

Day 3: Functionality and interactivity

  • Testing all forms and interactive elements
  • Navigation and links check
  • Media content audit

Day 4: Performance and technical aspects

  • Loading speed measurement
  • Technical correctness verification
  • Security audit

Day 5: SEO and analytics

  • Comprehensive SEO audit (technical, content, local)
  • Open Graph and social meta tags check
  • sitemap.xml and robots.txt analysis
  • Analytics setup and verification
  • Final testing and report preparation

🎯 KEY METRICS FOR TRACKING

Performance

  • Main page load time < 3 sec
  • LCP < 2.5 sec
  • FID < 100 ms
  • CLS < 0.1

User experience

  • All forms work correctly
  • Navigation is intuitive
  • Design meets requirements
  • Responsiveness on all devices

Security

  • SSL certificate works
  • Protection against main threats configured
  • No critical vulnerabilities
  • Administrative sections protected

SEO

  • All pages have unique title and description
  • Structured data configured
  • Internal linking is logical
  • Indexing speed is acceptable

Audit date: [Date] Auditor: [Name] Website: [Website URL] Website type: [Corporate/E-commerce/Blog/Landing page/Portal] Version: [Version/last update date]

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