---------------------------------------------

NOTE: This article is an archived copy for portfolio purposes only, and may refer to obsolete products or technologies. Old articles are not maintained for continued relevance and accuracy.
February 15, 1998

SiteSweeper 2.0

SiteSweeper 2.0 is a handy quality assurance tool that every Webmaster needs.

Although many products will test a site's URLs, SiteSweeper goes well beyond this basic functionality. It will examine images for proper dimensions, file sizes, predicted download times, redirected destinations, and almost every other imaginable thing that could possibly go wrong on your site.

The program's Windows-based management interface is clean and sparse, reflecting SiteSweeper's Spartan functionality. Reports are generated into HTML documents, and are also very well designed and easy to understand. Reports can be automated, but cannot be sent via e-mail.

One of SiteSweeper's more interesting tests is META tag validation, flagging documents that do not have mandatory entries. Another unique feature is the built-in document and image catalog, which allows you to get specific information about a file, including other files that link to it.

I only encountered one problem with the product. On the site I tested, I used frames to separate navigation functions from content, and one image in the navigation frame did not have an ALT tag. SiteSweeper reported this tag as missing from every page, although the image itself only appeared in the navigational frame. Site-Sweeper should have noticed that the frame containing the image was separate from the content document.

Overall, however, the quality of SiteSweeper is among the highest level I have seen. Almost everything works as expected, is visually appealing, and is easy to understand.

-- 30 --
Copyright © 2010-2017 Eric A. Hall.
Portions copyright © 1998 InfoWorld Media Group, Inc. Used with permission.
---------------------------------------------