In our previous blog post Automate SEO factors testing using Behat - Part 1, we covered SEO factors - meta tags, keyword and image optimization. Here we are going to cover the remaining SEO factors.
Redirection
Redirects are the technique to forward users and search engines from an old URL to the correct URL.
Types of Redirection:
Sample Scenario:
Given I am on “/redirect.php”
Then the response status code should be 301
And I should be redirected to “/redirect/redirect.php”
RedirectContext method:
Robots.txt
The robots.txt is a text file that instructs the search engines crawlers which page of the site is accessible. In a robots.txt file, we can specify allow or disallow rules for all user-agents or specific user-agent(s). When the file contains a rule that applies to only one user-agent, a robot will follow the URLs/sitemap specified for it. To ensure robots.txt file is found, always include it in the root domain. In case of robots.txt file is added in the subdirectory, it would not be discovered by robots and the complete page would be crawled.
Basic format:
User-agent: [user-agent name]
Disallow: [URL string not to be crawled]
Allow: [URL string to be crawled]
(Note: Only applicable for Googlebot)
Crawl-delay: [Time in seconds for the crawler to pause crawling the page]
Sitemap: [XML Sitemaps associated with the URL]
Sample Scenario:
Given I am a "Googlebot" crawler
Then I should be able to crawl "/crawl-allowed"
RobotsContext method:
Sitemap.xml
The sitemap is an XML file that provides search engines with the list of URLs, available for crawling on a particular website. A sitemap is mostly useful when a website is new with few links or content is large or it has rich media content. In such scenarios, a sitemap provides Google with pages that are more valuable and informative on the website.
For large websites, we may end with many sitemaps. Here, we can split large sitemaps using the sitemap index. Following is the XML tags for sitemap index file :
Sample Scenario:
Given the sitemap "/sitemap/valid-sitemap.xml"
Then the sitemap should be valid
SitemapContext method:
Extension module “marcortola/behat-seo-contexts” also provides the following validations:
Schema.org Markup
Schema.org is a collaborative effort between Google, Bing, Yandex, and Yahoo to create structured data markup. This will provide information to search engines about the page and enhance rich results experience.
Sample Scenario:
Given I am on homepage
Then the page HTML markup should be valid
HTMLContext method:
HTTP Status code
HTTP status code is a three-digit response sent by a server for a browser's request.
Common status code classes:
We can use the existing step - “Then the response status code should be 301”, to validate HTTP response code.
Hreflang Tag
Hreflang tag is an attribute which helps search engines to show the correct version of the page based on a user's location and language preferences
Format: <link rel="alternate" href="http://example.com" hreflang="en-us" />
One of the rules is that hreflang tags are bidirectional/reciprocal. Bidirectional means - When an English page is linked to Spanish page, then Spanish page must link back to the English page.
HTML Markup:
<link rel="alternate" href="https://www.qed42.com" hreflang="en" />
Sample Scenario:
Given I am on “/valid-hreflang.html”
Then the page hreflang markup should be valid
LocalizationContext method:
Page Speed
Page Speed (page load time) is the measure of time taken to fully load content on a page.
Some of the ways to increase page speed :
Extension module provides performance context that covers - Testing HTML minification, Testing CSS minification, Testing JS minification, Testing browser cache and Testing JS loading async or defer. Below is the snippet for CSS/JS minification.
Sample Scenario:
Given I am on "/performance/html/minified.html"
Then HTML code should be minified
PerformanceContext method:
URL Optimization
A URL (Uniform Resource Locator) is a human-readable text that specifies the location of the webpage on the internet. A URL has the following basic format: protocol://domain-name.top-level-domain/path
SEO best practices for URL optimization:
Good URL - https://www.example.com/seo/meta-tags
Bad URL - https://www.example.com/seo?=id=54321
We have covered the major SEO factors that affect the ranking of the site in the SERP and how to automate them using Behat. Hope this blog was informational!
If you'd like to automate the SEO of your site, reach out to business@qed42.com.
Happy Automation!!!