| Factor |
Description |
Importance |
| Primary
Broken links |
These are significant
and noticeable errors that negatively affect a user’s
experience. These errors consist of missing or incorrectly
specified links to pages, images, documents, email
addresses, other websites and broken anchors. |
High |
| Secondary
broken links |
Whilst a ¨no
tolerance¨ attitude to errors is recommended,
some broken links impact less than others on the quality
of visit. Consequently, missing image files that merely
help to align the page correctly, and are generally
not noticeable to a visitor are not penalised to the
same level as primary broken links. |
Low |
| Missing
page titles |
A slow website can
cause great frustration for a website visitor, and
can cause website abandonment. Whilst factors like
the speed of the internet and quality of connection
are important, so is page size. As some slow pages
are necessary if not desirable on any website to show
product images, presentations and so on, it is the
ratio of slow to fast pages that is measured to provide
an overall website speed figure. |
Medium |
| Slow
home page |
For the majority
of websites, the home page is the biggest single entry
point. Failure to load quickly can lead to website
abandonment at the first hurdle. A penalty is applied
to those websites that have a slow home page. |
High |
| Deep
Pages |
A website with pages
more than four clicks away from the home page is considered
to have ¨deep¨ pages. This can disorientate
visitors so that they feel lost on the website. |
Medium |
| Poorly
Implemented Frames |
Poorly implemented
frames can result in pages being displayed incorrectly,
printing issues and becoming disconnected in search
engine results. Failure to implement frames correctly
receives a penalty. |
Medium |
| Generic
page titles |
Page titles help
users to orientate themselves within a website. Use
of generic titles largely fails to help with this,
and so a penalty is applied. |
Medium |
| Javascript/Java/Flash
Required |
Websites that require
JavaScript, Java or Flash to be active in order to
navigate a website or view content receive a penalty,
as they exclude user groups that do not support these
technologies. |
High |
| Privacy
policy |
Users generally
want to know if data about them is recorded, and if
so, what is done with that data. Failure to have or
clearly label a link to a privacy policy statement
from the home page receives a penalty. |
High |
