Methodology of Audisto's website benchmarks by industry

What our benchmarks analyze and why you should care

Intro & Methodology

Audisto's technical website benchmarks by industry compare portals, shops and websites within an industry by current technological web standards and best practices with regards to security, performance, web-technology and content. It is our intention to highlight certain areas, we believe modern web development should implement by default. Technical standards exist for a reason. We're happy to discuss feedback to those checks, on a technical basis, if you feel we should add something specific.

Please keep in mind, while the checks are extensive, they are by far no complete technical analysis of a website and only test basic technical hygiene factors. If your website is featured, the provided information is not enough to "fix" your portal. It is advised to perform a complete technical and structural website audit to leverage your potential properly.

To compare different websites, we crawl HTML pages and resources and render up to 10.000 HTML pages for each site, all with identical crawl settings. We perform several tests on each URL the crawler finds. Every URL that passes or fails a check adds to the optimization rate of that subcategory. The optimization rate is an average of the resulting success rate.

If you click on "show details" you see all checks for the categories and a simplified "traffic light visualization" of the failure rate. Red is below 25% passed checks, green is true 100% passed and yellow everything in between. The optimization rate is calculated on a per URL level nonetheless. The four main categories are used to calculate the overall Audisto Optimization (AO) Score for the website benchmarks. The ranking shows the best optimized page for that industry (selected industry leaders by revenue, reach and such) on top.

Security Checks Explained

HTTPS Utilization

CHECK "SECURITY: HTTPS Utilization" IS:
  IF HTTP Status Exists THEN
    REQUIREMENT "HTTPS Utilization" IS:
      Scheme Equals "https"

Description

To pass this check, each URL within the scope of the crawl must use the HTTPS protocol.

Importance for SEO

Using a secure connection has some benefits in addition to the security aspect. Google announced that HTTPS is a ranking factor. In addition, HTTPS is a requirement for using HTTP/2 and HTTP/3 which provides a speed improvement over HTTP/1.x.

Operating Instructions

The internal link structure of a website should not refer to any HTTP versions. All links should be rewritten to use HTTPS. To do so, look at the incoming links for each of the URLs that fail this check.

Strict Transport Security

CHECK "SECURITY: Strict Transport Security" IS:
  IF (HTTP Status Exists AND
  Scheme Equals "https" AND
  Resource Is Local) THEN
    REQUIREMENT "Strict Transport Security" IS:
      (Hint Does Not Equal "130: Strict-Transport-Security HTTP header missing" AND
      Hint Does Not Equal "131: Strict-Transport-Security HTTP header has short duration" AND
      Hint Does Not Equal "133: Strict-Transport-Security HTTP header is invalid" AND
      Hint Does Not Equal "132: Strict-Transport-Security HTTP header sent more than once")

Description

To pass this check, all URLs considered local within the scope of the crawl must send a proper Strict Transport Security header.

Importance for SEO

This directive forces the client to use HTTPS in the future and ignores any calls to load resources via HTTP for that host or domain. In addition to the security aspect, this allows adding the domain to the preload list (https://hstspreload.org/) which forces the majority of browsers to use HTTPS even on the first request. Properly implementing Strict Transport Security avoids unnecessary requests (e.g., redirects) which cause additional latency. Faster websites usually show better conversion rates and more user engagement.

Operating Instructions

All URLs should send a proper Strict Transport Security header with a duration that allows the website to be included in the preload list. The header can be sent in the application or in the webserver / load-balancer / CDN. Choose whatever version is the most efficient one.

Secure Cookies

CHECK "SECURITY: Secure Cookies" IS:
  IF (HTTP Status Exists AND
  HTTP Header Starts With "Set-Cookie:" AND
  Resource Is Local) THEN
    REQUIREMENT "Secure Cookies" IS:
      (Hint Does Not Equal "135: Cookies set without secure flag" AND
      Hint Does Not Equal "141: Cookies send over insecure connection")

Description

To pass this check, all URLs considered local within the scope of the crawl must send all cookies with the secure flag and over a secure HTTPS connection.

Importance

The secure flag of a cookie instructs the browser that the cookie should only be transmitted over encrypted connections. Always setting cookies to be secure provides an additional level of security for your site because it prevents stealing of cookie data, which often includes user identifiers, passwords, session ids, and other critical data. However, this still requires only setting cookies using a secure connection in the first place.

Operating Instructions

Add the secure flag to all cookies sent within your application. Do not send any cookies over HTTP connections.

Unsafe Resources

CHECK "SECURITY: Unsafe Resources" IS:
  IF Content Class Equals "1: HTML" THEN
    REQUIREMENT "Unsafe Resources" IS:
      Hint Does Not Equal "56: Safe HTTPS webpage loads unsafe resource"
    
    REQUIREMENT "Blocked by Content Security Policy" IS:
      (Hint Does Not Equal "193: Rendering: Content blocked by Content Security Policy" AND
      Hint Does Not Equal "194: Rendering: Inline content blocked by Content Security Policy")

Description

To pass this check, each HTML page within the scope of the crawl must not contain an unsafe resource (e.g., images, JavaScript files, iframes or CSS) or a resource blocked by a Content Security Policy.

Importance

Unsafe resources within a page are a security risk. The variants covered by this hint allow stealing data in a large number of different scenarios. In addition, unsafe resources within a page usually result in security warning in the web browser, which usually is accompanied by a loss of trust and therefore a loss in revenue.

Operating Instructions

Close the security risk by including only secure resources in your pages. Delivered all resources using HTTPS and also consider using Strict Transport Security and a proper Content Security Policy on all pages.

Unsafe Forms

CHECK "SECURITY: Unsafe Forms" IS:
  IF Content Class Equals "1: HTML" THEN
    REQUIREMENT "Unsafe Forms" IS:
      (Hint Does Not Equal "65: <form> POST to HTTPS from HTTP" AND
      Hint Does Not Equal "92: <form> Unsafe GET to HTTP from HTTPS" AND
      Hint Does Not Equal "81: <form> Unsafe POST to HTTP from HTTPS")

Description

To pass this check, each HTML page within the scope of the crawl must not contain an unsafe <form>.

Importance

An unsafe HTML <form> is a security risk. The variants covered by this hint allow stealing the data on the origin page or during the transfer after the data is submitted.

Operating Instructions

Close the security risk by including forms only on secure pages delivered using HTTPS and by using only form action URLs that are also secure.

Performance Checks Explained

Redirect Usage

CHECK "PERFORMANCE: Redirect Usage" IS:
  IF (HTTP Status Exists AND
  Resource Is Local) THEN
    REQUIREMENT "Redirect Usage" IS:
      (HTTP Status Does Not Equal "301" AND
      HTTP Status Does Not Equal "302" AND
      HTTP Status Does Not Equal "303" AND
      HTTP Status Does Not Equal "307" AND
      HTTP Status Does Not Equal "308")
    
    REQUIREMENT "Client Side Redirect" IS:
      (Hint Does Not Equal "19: <meta refresh> found" AND
      Hint Does Not Equal "182: Rendering: Client side redirect")

Description

To pass this check, no URL considered local within the crawl is allowed to result in a redirect. This covers both redirects using an HTTP status code and redirects using a client side redirect e.g., meta refresh or JavaScript redirect.

Importance for SEO / Business

Redirects within the internal site structure cause additional requests and latencies. Response-times are a ranking factor for Google's mobile index. In addition, high response-times also affect user behavior which might result in higher bounce rates and negative user signals which can affect rankings as well. Studies show that in ecommerce 100 ms of additional load time leads to about 1% less sales.

In addition, meta refresh redirects with a delay violate the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines.

Operating Instructions

Change all links within the internal structure to point directly to the target of the redirect and replace meta refresh and JavaScript redirects with an HTTP redirect using a 301 or 302 status code.

Response Times

CHECK "PERFORMANCE: Response Times" IS:
  IF HTTP Status Exists THEN
    REQUIREMENT "Response Times" IS:
      Response Time Less Than "200" ms

Technology Checks Explained

HTTP Errors

CHECK "TECHNOLOGY: HTTP Errors" IS:
  IF HTTP Status Exists THEN
    REQUIREMENT "HTTP Errors" IS:
      (HTTP Status Does Not Start With "4" AND
      HTTP Status Does Not Start With "5")

Description

To pass this check crawled URLs within the crawl must have an HTTP status code other than 4xx and 5xx

Importance for SEO

No URL within the internal site structure should have an error code as response code. While missing pages (e.g., 404, 410) mostly affect the users and often result in a bounce, server errors (e.g., 500) also often result in decreased crawl speeds. Web crawlers usually throttle crawling to avoid being the cause of the errors. This is especially bad for large websites because it could result in fewer pages being indexed, which can also result in a traffic drop.

Operating Instructions

Fix all URLs showing error codes. Change the links pointing to the URLs if needed.

Incorrect Canonicals

CHECK "TECHNOLOGY: Incorrect Canonicals" IS:
  IF (HTTP Status Equals "200" AND
  Resource Is Local) THEN
    REQUIREMENT "Incorrect Canonicals" IS:
      (Hint Does Not Equal "49: <link rel=canonical>: Contains malformed or empty href" AND
      Hint Does Not Equal "62: <link rel=canonical>: Found outside <head>" AND
      Hint Does Not Equal "48: <link rel=canonical>: Found twice and differs" AND
      Hint Does Not Equal "189: Rendering: Canonical URL changed")

Description

To pass this check, all URLs considered local within the scope of the crawl need a self-referencing canonical link or none at all. In addition, the canonical link should not be changed during rendering.

Importance for SEO

The canonical link URL specifies a preferred version of a document that is available on more than one URL at a time. By using a canonical link element pointing to another URL, you are telling search engines to prefer the target URL in search results. If URLs that are not supposed to be shown in search results are part of the internal link graph, this can lead to a wasted crawl budget.

The following scenarios are miss usage and should never be used:

Canonical for localization
Canonical usage in pagination
Canonical usage for similar products

Operating Instructions

Fix all internal links to point directly to the preferred version of the document. You might also want to evaluate if multiple URLs for one document are necessary at all. Avoid all the miss-usage scenarios.

Localization/Hreflang

CHECK "TECHNOLOGY: Localization/Hreflang" IS:
  IF (Content Class Equals "1: HTML" AND
  Resource Is Local) THEN
    REQUIREMENT "Localization/Hreflang" IS:
      (Hint Does Not Equal "123: Hreflang: Self link missing" AND
      Hint Does Not Equal "126: Hreflang: URL empty or malformed" AND
      Hint Does Not Equal "145: Language: Invalid" AND
      Hint Does Not Equal "144: Language: Set multiple times and differs" AND
      Hint Does Not Equal "143: Language: Not set on document")

Description

When content exists in different languages, a complex set of rules must be fulfilled to e.g., tell Google about localized versions of your page. To pass this check, a document needs a valid language specification, and all URLs with hreflang definitions must have a self-link and the hreflang URLs are not allowed to be empty or malformed. In addition, this check enforces a correct "de" language setting and forbids common misconfigurations.

Importance for SEO

Correct language settings can be crucial for localized content, since it allows search engines to display the best results for the matching audience. Incorrect language settings could lead to problems with localized content. This usually results in the wrong version showing up in search results. In addition, screen-readers and other software often rely on correct language settings.

Operating Instructions

Specify the language using only the lang attribute on the HTML tag (https://www.w3.org/International/questions/qa-html-language-declarations.en). Avoid any misconfigurations and miss usage of other tags.

Encoding Issues

CHECK "TECHNOLOGY: Encoding Issues" IS:
  IF Content Class Equals "1: HTML" THEN
    REQUIREMENT "Encoding Issues" IS:
      (Hint Does Not Equal "104: <html> contains too many uncommon non-printable characters" AND
      Hint Does Not Equal "103: Charset: Charset set in HTTP Content-Type header and document differ" AND
      Hint Does Not Equal "102: Charset: Not set" AND
      Hint Does Not Equal "101: Charset: Invalid charset in Content-Type HTTP header")

Description

To pass this check, none of the crawled HTML pages within the crawl is allowed to show indicators for encoding problems (e.g., BOM, uncommon non-printable-characters).

Importance

Having a unique BOM at the top of the HTML is valid but might result in problems with third party software. As of HTML5, a BOM is supposed to override the charset definition from the HTTP header. If the BOM is used for charsets that are not Unicode, this might lead to encoding problems. Encoding problems may lead to issues with the appearance of the site in browsers and search engines and therefore lead to issues with the user experience.

Non-printable characters may not be visible in the source code, but nonetheless impact:

the behavior of the site, e.g., when they are inside an anchor's href or an image's src attribute
the ranking of the site, e.g., when they are an invisible part of a word

This might affect crawling and user experience, possibly resulting in issues with accessibility and ranking.

Operating Instructions

You should consider removing the BOM and specify the encoding in the HTTP header and as a meta tag in the HTML <head>.

Non-printable characters should generally be encoded as HTML entities and removed whenever possible. If validating transferred data in an application, the validation should check for non-printable characters and probably remove them.

Bad Link Structure

CHECK "TECHNOLOGY: Bad Link Structure" IS:
  IF (Content Class Equals "1: HTML" AND
  Resource Is Local) THEN
    REQUIREMENT "Bad Link Structure" IS:
      (Hint Does Not Equal "31: <a> has malformed href" AND
      Hint Does Not Equal "98: <a> href attribute has leading or trailing whitespace characters" AND
      Hint Does Not Equal "38: <base>: Contains malformed or empty href" AND
      Hint Does Not Equal "83: <base>: Found more than once and differs" AND
      Hint Does Not Equal "142: Linking: nofollow link to network URL")

Description

To pass this check, all links need to point to a valid URI and should not start or end with whitespace characters.

Importance

A link with a malformed href cannot be parsed and will therefore not be recognized by search engines. In addition, links like this can result in issues with user experience.

Leading and trailing whitespaces in an HREF attribute usually get trimmed by browsers. Nonetheless, it is better to remove whitespaces. It may also indicate a problem with the code that generates the site.

Operating Instructions

Fix all malformed href attribute values on your website. Remove unnecessary leading or trailing whitespaces. Reviewing the code that generates the link might be necessary.

Browser Console Warnings

CHECK "TECHNOLOGY: Browser Console Warnings" IS:
  IF (Content Class Equals "1: HTML" AND
  Resource Is Local) THEN
    REQUIREMENT "Deprecation Warnings" IS:
      (Browser Console Message Does Not Contain Case Insensitive "is deprecated" AND
      Browser Console Message Does Not Contain Case Insensitive "will be removed")
    
    REQUIREMENT "Removal Warning" IS:
      Browser Console Message Does Not Contain Case Insensitive "Support for this event type has been removed"
    
    REQUIREMENT "Other Warnings and Errors" IS:
      (Browser Console Message Does Not Contain Case Insensitive "Unrecognized feature" AND
      Browser Console Message Does Not Contain Case Insensitive "Failed to decode downloaded font" AND
      Browser Console Message Does Not Contain Case Insensitive "OTS parsing error" AND
      Browser Console Message Does Not Contain Case Insensitive "Error parsing a meta element's content" AND
      Browser Console Message Does Not Contain Case Insensitive "Failed to execute")

Description

To pass this test, the browser console of the rendered HTML pages must not contain any warnings indicating the use of deprecated, removed, or unknown functions, or errors in code execution.

Importance

Browser console warnings often point to code execution issues that can impact user experience, functionality, crawlability and sometimes even affect indexing and search engine rankings. Addressing these warnings ensures a cleaner execution environment.

Operating Instructions

Open the browser console while rendering each HTML page and review any warnings or errors logged during a page load. Focus particularly on messages regarding deprecated functionality, removed features, or JavaScript execution errors. Resolve these by updating code, removing unsupported APIs, and validating any third-party integrations.

Content Checks Explained

Search Snippet Issues

CHECK "CONTENT: Search Snippet Issues" IS:
  IF (Content Class Equals "1: HTML" AND
  HTTP Status Equals "200" AND
  Meta Robots Equals "index" AND
  Resource Is Local) THEN
    REQUIREMENT "Title" IS:
      (Hint Does Not Equal "4: <title> missing or empty" AND
      Hint Does Not Equal "61: <title> found outside <head>" AND
      Hint Does Not Equal "6: <title> occurs more than once" AND
      Hint Does Not Equal "16: <title> short or single word" AND
      Hint Does Not Equal "5: <title> too long for Google snippet" AND
      Hint Does Not Equal "190: Rendering: Page title changed")
    
    REQUIREMENT "Meta-Description" IS:
      (Hint Does Not Equal "7: <meta description> missing or empty" AND
      Hint Does Not Equal "9: <meta description> occurs more than once" AND
      Hint Does Not Equal "191: Rendering: Meta description changed")

Description

To pass this check, each HTML page considered local within the scope of the crawl must have a proper title and meta description. In addition, the title must fit the length requirements. Title and meta description within the HTML and rendered HTML must be the same.

Importance for SEO

An optimized search snippet is the best way to achieve high click-rates and drive a lot of SEO traffic to a website. The title, meta-description and for most pages also the breadcrumb form the search snippet and should therefore fulfill a number of requirements. Titles and Description that don't fulfill the length requirement are shortened by Google, or Google generates a snippet on its own. Those snippets usually show lower click-rates.

Operating Instructions

Optimize all titles and meta-descriptions and make sure they are directly included in the HTML returned by the server. Make sure they stay withing the length requirements. Usually it is a good idea to have a number of different templates to dynamically build a couple of titles and meta-descriptions and then choose one that fulfills the requirements. One simple way would be only appending the brand name if it does not break the length requirement.

Important Headings

CHECK "CONTENT: Important Headings" IS:
  IF (Content Class Equals "1: HTML" AND
  HTTP Status Equals "200" AND
  Meta Robots Equals "index" AND
  Resource Is Local) THEN
    REQUIREMENT "Important Headings" IS:
      (Hint Does Not Equal "21: <h1> and <h2> not found" AND
      Hint Does Not Equal "20: <h1> not found")

Description

To pass this check, all indexable HTML pages considered local within the scope of the crawl must fulfill the best practices for headlines.

Importance for SEO

The use of heading tags to emphasize important text is a best practice for SEO and mentioned in Googles Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Starter Guide (https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/7451184?hl=en).

Headings are usually displayed larger than a normal text and help users to scan a page and to understand it. This usually results in more user interaction with the page and therefore has an impact on the revenue generated by a website.

Operating Instructions

Make sure all pages are well-structured using headlines.

Alt Attributes

CHECK "CONTENT: Alt Attributes" IS:
  IF (Content Class Equals "1: HTML" AND
  HTTP Status Equals "200" AND
  Meta Robots Equals "index" AND
  Resource Is Local) THEN
    REQUIREMENT "Alt Attributes" IS:
      Hint Does Not Equal "26: <img> has no alt attribute"

Description

To pass this check, each indexable HTML page considered local within the scope of the crawl must specify an alt attribute for all images.

Importance

Valid HTML requires an alt attribute for almost all images. There are only two scenarios that don't require an alt attribute, and they usually don't apply (https://www.w3.org/TR/html51/semantics-embedded-content.html#guidance-for-conformance-checkers). It would be valid to use an empty attribute if the image is only for decoration. In addition, alt attributes are one of the factors used by search engines to determine the topic of the image. To pass this test, all images need at least an empty alt attribute. This check is performed against all indexable HTML documents with a 200 HTTP status code.

Operating Instructions

Add the missing alt attribute to all images within the corresponding pages. Fill the alt attribute with useful information that describes the content of the image.

Rendering Issues

CHECK "CONTENT: Rendering Issues" IS:
  IF (Content Class Equals "1: HTML" AND
  Resource Is Local) THEN
    REQUIREMENT "Dialog pops up" IS:
      Hint Does Not Equal "185: Rendering: Dialog pops up"
    
    REQUIREMENT "Failing GET Resources" IS:
      Hint Does Not Equal "196: Rendering: Has failing GET resources"

Description

To pass this check, each HTML page considered local within the scope of the crawl must not open dialog popups and must not contain failing GET resources during rendering.

Importance

Showing dialog popups to users produces a poor user experience and provides poor accessibility and should therefore be avoided. Any additional resources loaded during rendering are considered relevant for the content or might even be the main content.

Operating Instructions

Make sure all HTML pages only open dialog popups after user interactions. Fix all failing resources required for proper rendering.

FAQ

Q: How can I improve my ranking within my industry?
A: Click on the "show details" and check which categories have a low optimization score. Start there to improve your website.

Q: How do you handle a tie in the ranking for the Audisto Optimization Score?
A: If the score is the "same" we first look into the decimal places (which are not shown) and if the tie still persists the lowest optimization rate for any category loses.

Q: I really like what you're doing with the industry ranking and I have feedback concerning the test requirements. Do you want it?
A: Yes, please. We're happy to discuss those. One reason we're so transparent with the checks. Please keep in mind, for this free and public ranking, we're only testing for uncontroversial web standards. Contact us here to give feedback.

Q: My own website/competitor is missing in my industry ranking. Can you add that domain?
A: We select the featured domains by leaders of metrics such as revenue or reach within the industry. If you have data that supports your claim, why a certain portal is missing, we're interested to hear it. Contact us here to give feedback.

Q: My website is featured, but all categories are red, and the details show “crawling this domain failed". What can I do?
A: First, check if your website had technical issues on the date specified. Second, if you want to make sure our crawler can access your website, you should whitelist our bot. The Audisto crawler adheres very strictly to current rules for bots and is one of the “nice robots". Follow instruction here.