Page health

In short

• Once a day, page health opens up to 15 pages of your app and tells you what does not work.
• It looks for a link in the navigation or footer that leads nowhere, and a page that answers with an error.
• It also looks for a JavaScript error and a failed request of your own site.
• It also looks for a broken image, a missing title or main heading and a page wider than a phone screen.
• It also looks for a form field without a label, a page that loads blank and a navigation that differs on one page.
• Each of these is a Hints entry, and only once two looks in a row show it in the same place. One look can catch a deploy in progress, so the first sighting stays quiet.
• It is part of Watch and Care, for an app with a confirmed domain. It has no price of its own and is not part of Free.
• A Hint is not a security finding. It does not change your score, never opens an incident, and no email is sent for it.
• Page health ignores robots.txt on a domain you confirmed, because confirming the domain is your permission for us to read it. It still reads politely: it says who it is, only reads, sends nothing, and keeps to fixed limits for pages, time and requests.

Where in the app

The Page health card is at the end of the side column of each app's page, below Settings. On a phone it is the last card on the page.

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Step by step

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1. Open the app

   Click the app under Apps in the sidebar or on Home. Its page opens.

2. Read the word

   The card carries one word. Waiting means no look has finished yet, or one is under way. Fine means no Hint is open after the last look. Hints means at least one Hint is open. Unknown means the last look could not read your site, so the card says nothing about it. Point at the small i beside the word for what the word does and does not mean. The line at the top right says how long ago the last look was.

3. Read a Hint

   Each Hint names the page it is about, says in one sentence what does not work, and says since when. A line under it can name what is missing or what the page reported.

4. Answer it

   Under a Hint, a short question asks whether it is a problem, with two buttons. Click Yes, a problem when something is wrong. The Hint stays until a later look no longer sees it, and reads You marked this as a problem. It stays here until it stops happening. meanwhile. Click No, on purpose when it is meant to be that way. The Hint goes away and the same thing on the same page is not reported again. When an app has more than three Hints, a link under the third one opens the rest. A line under the Hints says that answering No, on purpose twice for the same kind of Hint hides that kind for the app.

Your answers are how Vallit learns whether page health finds anything worth your time. If too few owners confirm a Hint as a real problem, Vallit switches page health off.

What happens behind the scenes

What a look is

• A fresh browser opens your app's address and follows its links, up to 15 pages, on a phone-sized screen as well as a desktop one. It runs in an isolated environment that can reach your confirmed address and its www or bare twin, and nothing else. Other sites, and other addresses of yours, are out of reach.
• It only reads. It does not sign in, type, click, send a form or download a file. A page whose address says sign out, unsubscribe, delete, cancel, checkout, payment, api, webhook or callback is never opened.
• It says who it is: the browser's own name, followed by the name Vallit's checks use, VallitBot.
• It stops at 15 pages, 15 seconds for a page, 2 minutes for the whole look and 40 link checks, and waits a moment between link checks.
• A look happens once a day, at least 20 hours after the last one. It is not part of the five-minute watch.

What counts

• The same navigation is expected on every page. A page that differs from the usual one is a Hint.
• A link in the navigation or footer is a Hint when its page is gone. It is also a Hint when it still answers with a server error after a second try. A link that asks for a sign-in is not.
• A script of another host is not loaded. A page that needs one to draw itself is therefore not judged on whether it is blank or has a heading.
• A form field without a label counts. A placeholder counts as a label.

What a look cannot see

• Errors that only appear after typing or clicking.
• A page that says "not found" but answers as if all is well.
• Errors that appear several seconds after the page loaded.
• Anything behind a sign-in.

When a look cannot read your site

A look can fail for reasons on either side: your start page does not answer, your site answers with a bot check, or Vallit's browser did not start. Such a look opens no Hint and closes none. The card reads Unknown. After three looks in a row that could not read your site, it looks once a week instead of once a day.

Answers and silence

When you answer No, on purpose twice for the same kind of Hint on the same app, that kind is not reported again for the app.

If something goes wrong

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