Although it may seem unimportant to replace an Rich Text apostrophe with the HTML equivalent or to make sure your WHOIS record is perfect, the reality is that the more accessible and polished your website is, the greater chance you have to secure more readership, and, most importantly, more revenue.

If you’re serious about maintaining a well-rounded, efficient website, the cheapest (and perhaps best) way to make sure you’re on the right track is self-evaluation. To get you started, we’ve put together a list containing 31 of our favorite tools for “grading” your website.

Code Validation

The foundation for every website is fundamentally sound source code. Unfortunately programmers aren’t always the most meticulous type of people. They’d rather hash out the difficult stuff and leave the details to someone else, and that’s where code validation comes in. To make sure your website’s source code and features are fully functional you should run it through the following validation tests.

1. WDG HTML Validator - EDITOR’S CHOICE - Excellent tool for identifying syntax errors on pages driven by markup languages. Also has an option to recursively check for errors on every page in the website directory.

2. W3C Markup Validation Service - Traverses HTML and XHTML markup for syntax errors. Boasts the title of first (and most used) HTML validator on the internet.

3. W3C CSS Validation Service - Checks CSS documents for errors in source code. Also gives warnings for code that doesn’t exhibit the best design practices; e.g. “Same colors for color and background-color in two contexts.”

4. RUWF? XML Syntax Checker - Checks for malformed data in XML documents.

5. W3C Feed Validation Service - Checks the syntax of Atom and RSS feeds for errors.

6. W3C Link Checker - EDITOR’S CHOICE - Searches for and identifies broken links. Specifically checks that all the links are dereferenceable, no links and anchors are defined twice and warns about invalid http and directory redirects.

7. Juicy Studio Link Analyser - Tests the links on a page for Urls that resolve successfully. Works similar to W3C Link Checker.

Accessibility

All too often we see webmasters designing websites that focus on looking attractive while completely failing to consider the impact of visitor accessibility. Unfortunately, an ineffective or difficult to navigate website is certain to fail, no matter how attractive it is. To make sure your visitors are getting the information they need (and thus becoming repeat visitors), your website should follow various WCAG and section 508 accessibility guidelines.

8. Watchfire WebXACT - EDITOR’S CHOICE - A must use tool for all serious designers and developers. Generates a very detailed report on the quality, accessibility and privacy of a website.

9. ATRC Web Accessibility Checker - Tests webpages for WCAG 2.0 Level2 compatibility. Generates a report with a series of recommendations for bringing headers, links, metadata, tables and text up to speed.

10. WAVE 3.0 Web Accessibility Tool - EDITOR’S CHOICE - Highly customizable tool that uses a graphical model to display website compatibility issues with WCAG 1.0 and section 508.

11. TAW Web Accessibility Test - Tests webpages for conflicts with WCAG 1.0 compatibility and reports issues via a graphical model. Generates recommendations based upon WCAG priority model.

12. HiSoftware CynthiaSays portal - Uses a very strict policy to test webpages for section 508 and WCAG 1.0 compliance. Reports results in an extremely detailed (yet difficult to read) table.

13. HERA Accessibility testing with Style - Uses a very sophisticated and easy to read approach to point out WCAG 1.0 compatibility issues with a particular webpage.

14. Juicy Studio CSS Analyser - Performs a color contrast test to make sure your sites CSS color scheme meets WCAG 1.0 requirements.

15. Juiciy Studio Readability Test - Analyzes the language on your website based upon the Flesch Reading Ease and Flesch-Kincaid grade level algorithms. Useful for determining if you’re speaking over the head of your readers.

Speed

How fast your website loads is often a key factor in getting visitors to return. In many cases if a visitor has a slow internet connection, they won’t even bother to visit websites dominated by large images, flash files and multimedia documents. To maximize your website’s reach, you’ll need to maintain webpages that can get the job done fast.

16. Web Page Analyzer from Website Optimization - EDITOR’S CHOICE - An excellent tool that analyzes a webpage and gives recommendations for decreasing loading time. Focuses on optimizing the number of objects, images and overall size of the webpage.

17. WebSitePulse Test Tools - A series of tools for identifying website load times and hostname information.

18. Internet Supervision Url Check - Generates load times of your webpage from various servers around the world. Useful for determining if your extended audience is actually receiving your message.

Browser Simulators

Perhaps the most common problem in web development is failing to make sure that a website renders properly for every operating system and browser. Attempting to address the problem manually, however, is never an easy task because developers typically have access to two operating systems (at best) and usually no more than a few browsers. To combat this we recommend you check out the following resources that allow you to see what your website looks like on various platforms.

19. Browsershots - Takes screenshots of your website in various browsers and platforms including Firefox and Internet Explorer on Windows, Firefox and Safari on Mac OS X and Iceweasal and Konqueror on Linux. Unfortunately the tool requires you to wait up to three hours in a processing queue before retrieving your screenshots.

20. IE NetRenderer - Generates real time screenshots of your website on Internet Explorer versions 5.5, 6.0 and 7.0.

21. MobiReady Report – Analyzes your webpage for compatibility issues on a mobile phone. Generates a detailed report on potential viewing problems and offers a glimpse as to what the website would look like on two different types of mobile phone browsers.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Developing a website with an “SEO friendly” model is a sure way to gain an edge on the competition. By making the most out of the following tools, you’ll develop a better understanding of who your audience is and will likely help you come up with more effective ways of appealing to them.

22. UrlTrends - EDITOR’S CHOICE - Graphically displays a website’s visitor traffic information by search engine prevalence. Extracts information from Google, Yahoo, MSN, Alexa, AlltheWeb, AltaVista and more.

23. iWEBTOOL Backlink Checker - Excellent tool for figuring out which sites are linking to yours, and what part of the site they’re linking to.

24. iWEBTOOL Multi-Rank Checker - Neatly displays your pages’ Alexa and Google PageRank stats.

25. Microsoft adCenter Labs: Advertising and Keyword Research Tools - EDITOR’S CHOICE - A fantastic set of tools for analyzing and predicting the audience and market of your website.

26. Domain Tools Whois lookup - Comprehensive Whois tool that displays all of the standard domain information and calculates the efficiency of a websites markup when seen through the eyes of a search engine spider.

27. SEO-Browser - Strips your website of all the “pretty” components to show you how it looks to a search engine. Very useful tool to make sure your design is on the right track.

28. SEO Workers SEO Analysis Tool - EDITOR’S CHOICE - Extremely useful tool that analyzes an assortment of page features including meta tags, keyword density and load time.

29. Seekport Seekbot - Analyzes a website’s metadata and textual content to determine how effective a search engine would interpret the website.

30. SEO Chat SEO Tools - A stock pile of SEO tools for measuring Google AdSense earning potential, keyword density, meta tag effectiveness and much more.

31. Marketleap Search Engine Marketing Tools - A group of tools used to analyze the popularity of a particular webpage, how well your site is indexed in search engines and how well you rank for particular keywords.

網站代碼驗證

沒人可以細致到保證自己的網站代碼都是正確的，你可以通過以下測試來驗證網站代碼是否正確。

1 . WDG HTML Validator 一個很好的工具，能找出網站語法錯誤的地方，并標注出來，也可選擇對網站上單獨的每一頁進行單頁分析。（ 強烈推薦 ）

2 . W3C Markup Validation Service 對 HTML 和 XHTML 都能進行代碼測試，自稱是互聯(lián)網絡上第一個（也是使用者最多的）的 HTML 驗證工具。

3 . W3C CSS Validation Service 用于驗證 css 源代碼，能夠標注出不好的 css 代碼設計。例如：“Same colors for color and background-color in two contexts”。

4 . RUWF XML Syntax Checker 用于查找 XML 文件的錯誤。

5 . W3C Feed Validation Service 用于查找 Atom 和 RSS feed 中的錯誤語法。（ 這個我經常用到 ）

6 . W3C Link Checker 用于搜尋查明你網站內的所有鏈接里是否有斷鏈。（ 強烈推薦 ）

7 . Juicy Studio Link Analyser 測試網站內的鏈接的 URL 是否存在死鏈，與 W3C Link Checker 很類似。

網站的使用性

我們常常看到網站設計者把重點放在怎網站的吸引力上，而完全不考慮會不會影響來訪者的使用，一個瀏覽難度很大的網頁是注定要失敗，要讓你的來訪者方便的得到他要的信息（從而成為重復訪客），你的網站應當遵循 WCAG section 508 易用性規(guī)則。

8 . Watchfire WebXACT 所有嚴謹?shù)脑O計師和開發(fā)者都必須使用的工具，它會生成一個非常詳盡的報告書，包括：網站質量，易用性和隱私等。（ 強烈推薦 ）

9 . ATRC Web Accessibility Checker 測試網站的 WCAG 2.0 Level2 兼容性，它會生成一份報告，提出一系列建議，如：如何提升頁頭，鏈接，數(shù)據(jù)，圖表和文字的訪問速度。

10 . WAVE 3.0 Web Accessibility Tool 高度可定制的工具，它采用了圖形化模型展示網站兼容性問題（ WCAG 1.0 and section 508 ）。（ 強烈推薦 ）

11 . TAW Web Accessibility Test 測試網頁是否存在沖突（ WCAG 1.0 兼容性 ），通過圖形模式生成一份依據(jù) wcag 優(yōu)先模式為基礎的網站修改建議。

12 . HiSoftware CynthiaSays portal 采用了非常嚴格的規(guī)則來測試網頁（ 根據(jù) section 508 和 WCAG 1.0 規(guī)則 ），生成的報告也極為詳細（ 詳細到很難看懂 ）。

13 . HERA Accessibility testing with Style 使用一種極為復雜但容易理解方式指出網頁的 wcag1.0 兼容性問題。

14 . Juicy Studio CSS Analyser 進行了色彩對比測試，以確保你的網站的色調會符合 WCAG 1.0 的要求。

15 . Juiciy Studio Readability Test 分析你網站上的文字是否有語法錯誤或拼寫錯誤等問題，容易讓人理解不（ 根據(jù) the Flesch Reading Ease 和 Flesch-Kincaid grade level algorithms 規(guī)則 ）。（ 適合英文網站使用 ）

網站的速度

打開你的網站的速度快慢，是來訪者會不會再次訪問網站的關鍵因素，在一般情況下，一個網絡不是很快的來訪者是不愿意訪問一個充滿著圖片、flash 動畫、多媒體文件的網站。為了使你的網站覆蓋人群的范圍最大化，你必須優(yōu)化你的網站，使它的打開速度盡可能的快。

16 . Web Page Analyzer from Website Optimization 一個很好的工具，它在分析完一個網頁后，會為減少加載時間提出優(yōu)化建議，著重優(yōu)化物體的數(shù)目，圖片和網站的總體大小。（ 強烈推薦 ）

17 . WebSitePulse Test Tools 有一系列的工具來確定網站的加載速度和主機信息。

18 . Internet Supervision Url Check 從世界各地不同的服務器來測試你的網站的加載時間，用于確定是不是各地的來訪者都能順利快速的打開你得網站。

瀏覽器模擬工具

這是一個普遍的問題，因為現(xiàn)在有著很多的操作系統(tǒng)和瀏覽器，你得網站必須得兼容它們，但這絕不是一件容易的事。通過下列工具，你可以了解你得網站在各種瀏覽器上的顯示效果。

19 . Browsershots 能給出你的網站在不同瀏覽器下顯示效果的截圖，包括：Firefox 和 Internet Explorer （ Windows ）、Firefox 和 Safari （ Mac OS X ）、Iceweasal 和 Konqueror （ Linux ），但是結果要在 1 - 3 小時后才能出來。

20 . IE NetRenderer 實時生成你的網站在 Internet Explorer 5.5 、6.0 和 7.0 下的截圖。

21 . MobiReady Report 分析使用手機訪問網頁的兼容性問題，會生成一份詳細的報告，并提供了在兩種不同類型的手機瀏覽器上你得網站可能顯示的樣子。

搜索引擎優(yōu)化 (SEO)

一個網站，如果對搜索引擎有著比較好的友好度，一定會比較有競爭力。

22 . UrlTrends 會顯示網站的訪客是如何通過搜索引擎來到你的網站，還有各個流量是多少。這些數(shù)據(jù)是包括 Google, Yahoo, MSN, Alexa, AlltheWeb, AltaVista 和其他一些網站。（ 強烈推薦 ）

23 . iWEBTOOL Backlink Checker 一個很好的工具，它能找出有什么站點鏈接到你的站點，那些站點是什么類型的站點。

24 . iWEBTOOL Multi-Rank Checker 顯示你網站的 Alexa 和 Google PageRank 數(shù)值。

25 . Microsoft adCenter Labs: Advertising and Keyword Research Tools 一個極好的工具，用于分析和預測你網站的來訪者和市場。（ 強烈推薦 ）

26 . Domain Tools Whois lookup 一個 WHOIS 網絡工具。

27 . SEO-Browser 可以讓你看到在搜索引擎眼里一樣的網站（ 去掉所有的”美麗”配件 ）。

28 . SEO Workers SEO Analysis Tool 非常有用的工具，分析了網站上的各種分類特征，包括 meta 標簽、關鍵字密度及加載時間。（ 強烈推薦 ）

29 . Seekport Seekbot 可以分析網站的數(shù)據(jù)和內容，以得出搜索引擎會如何有效的解釋分析的網站。

30 . SEO Chat SEO Tools 用以分析網站 Google adsense 盈利潛力，關鍵字密度，Meta tag 等等……

31 . Marketleap Search Engine Marketing Tools 用來分析網頁，讓你知道你的網站檢索、設定的關鍵字好不好。