Once the web pages has been designed it is very important that they are verified and tested completely before going live on the World Wide Web. Verification here means to check the HTML documents for a large number of errors and testing refer to the checking the reliability, functionality and compatibility of the web pages. During verification the HTML documents are generally examined with respect to their layout, typographic errors, grammatical mistakes and so on. In testing phase all the scripts, functions, applets, embedded tools, CSS (Cascading Style Sheets), DHTML effects etc. are checked.
If you are dealing with a complex web site containing a large number of HTML documents then verifying and testing each and every resource manually can be cumbersome. Therefore, in order to ensure high level of accuracy and to save time a large number of sophisticated computer programs can be used. Below are some popular verification services which can be used to test the web pages:
• Doctor HTML: This is a verification service which is used to analyze the contents of a web page in detail. It can be used for checking different aspects of the HTML documents such as spelling, images, the structure of the document, tables, hyperlinks, forms and much more. It should be noted that Doctor HTML is not a software which can be downloaded and installed in the computer, rather it is a web service (a Common Gateway Interface, CGI script) for which one has to subscribe in order to get his/her web site verified.
• Weblint: Just like Doctor HTML, Weblint is also a web based service which is used to test and verify the HTML documents. It can be used to check the basic structure of the website, to check for the unknown elements and attributes, tag context, overlapped tags, illegally nested tags, images, hyperlinks, obsolete tags etc.
• WebTechs: It is also a web based service which can be used to check whether a particular HTML document or web site conforms to the predefined standards or not.
• Some of the other web site verification services are Slovenian HTMLchek, U.S.M.A (United States Military Academy’s verification service), Harbinger and URL-Minder.
In case you have to verify a small number of HTML documents then it is recommended that apart from using the online verification services you check the web pages yourself also so that the chances of mistakes are minimized. While performing a manual check makes sure that there are no spelling errors, grammatical errors and formatting errors. The navigation structure of the web site should be checked for consistency, all the DHTML effects should be tested in order to see if they are working in the way they were supposed to and the tables should be checked for their alignment. Besides this, all the images, hyperlinks, background scripts and forms should also be checked thoroughly.
Site verification and testing is a continuous and dynamic process. As the web standards change from time to time the web sites are also updated frequently and retested according to the new standards and procedures.