| The Website Utility contains a number of useful features that can assist
with checking a website for errors. Samples of The Website Utility's
reports will show these reports in more detail. If you want to try The Website Utility
on your own websites, a free trial
version is also available for immediate download.  Download
The Website Utility Evaluation Version (3Mb ZIP file).
Broken Hyperlinks
The Website Utility has the option of checking hyperlinks found in a website to ensure
they are still accessible on the Internet. Both internal (i.e links to other pages within
the website being checked) and external 3rd party websites can be checked. The Site Errors
Report will list problem hyperlinks by the page they are found in.
Moved Hyperlinks
As well as finding broken hyperlinks, The Website Utility will also identify links to
pages that have moved. Identification of these can allow you to update the links, which
may prevent them becoming broken in future.
Spaces in Page Titles
Websites frequently contain URLs with spaces in them. These are not supported by older
web browsers (e.g. Netscape 4). They are also confusing for people to write down or
remember, so the URLs should be renamed where possible.
Identification of file:// Prefixed Links
The Website Utility can identify links prefixed with file://. These links can often be
accidentally inserted into HTML when using a HTML Editor such as Microsoft's FrontPage.
Furthermore, these links will usually work when the website is viewed on the same machine
where the HTML pages were created, so it can be a difficult error to spot and to resolve.
In the worst case scenario, it is an error that will be spotted by the website's
customers, or even the client who commissioned it.
Detection of Robots.txt or Meta Tag Issues
Most web robots, including those used by search engines to seek out new content for
inclusion in their directories will obey both a web server's robots.txt file as well as
the 'robots' meta tag that may be present in individual pages.
If a website, or portions of that website cannot appear to be submitted successfully to
search engines it is possible that the search engine is not accepting that website due to
it being marked as non-retrievable in either the robots.txt file or in individual files
through the use of the 'robots' meta tag.
The Robots Exclusion Report lists any pages that may not be retrievable due to either
robots.txt or 'robots' meta tag restrictions.
Download
The Website Utility Evaluation Version (3Mb ZIP file).
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