Getting Started with SortSite Professional: Setup, Best Practices, and TipsSortSite Professional is a desktop website quality-assurance tool that checks websites for accessibility, usability, SEO, privacy, and technical errors. This guide walks through installation and setup, how to run effective audits, interpret results, prioritize fixes, and apply best practices to make your website more usable, compliant, and search‑friendly.
What SortSite Professional does (quick overview)
SortSite runs automated scans of single pages or entire sites and reports issues in several categories:
- Accessibility (WCAG and Section 508 conformance)
- Usability and compatibility problems
- Search engine optimization (on‑page SEO)
- Privacy and security flags (e.g., mixed content)
- HTML, CSS, and link validation
- Internationalization and localization hints
Why use it: it consolidates many QA checks into one tool, produces actionable reports, and helps teams maintain standards across large sites.
Installation and initial setup
System requirements
- Windows (SortSite is primarily a Windows desktop application). Check the current SortSite website for exact supported OS versions.
- Reasonable CPU and RAM for scanning large sites (quad‑core CPU and 8+ GB RAM recommended for heavy use).
- Internet access for scanning live sites and for license activation.
Download and license
- Obtain SortSite Professional from the vendor’s official download or through your organization’s licensing portal.
- Install using the provided installer. You may need administrator privileges.
- Activate with your license key. For site or team licenses, follow the vendor instructions for floating or concurrent license setups.
Initial configuration
- Set the base URL(s) you’ll scan.
- Configure scan depth and crawl limits to avoid overloading sites or scanning irrelevant areas (e.g., admin backends).
- Exclude private or sensitive paths (login, payment callbacks) via exclude rules.
- Set user agent string if you want the scanner to mimic a specific browser or bot.
- Configure authentication (Basic, NTLM, or form-based) for scanning protected areas—SortSite supports supplying credentials or using cookie-based sessions.
Running your first scan
- Add the page or site root you want to test. For a site audit, start at the home page.
- Choose scan type:
- Single page (fast, focused checks)
- Site crawl (comprehensive; follows internal links)
- Adjust options:
- Depth (how many link levels to follow)
- Domains to include/exclude (limit to your domain)
- File types to scan (HTML, PDF, images)
- Start the scan and monitor progress. For large sites, consider running scans during off-peak hours.
Interpreting results
SortSite groups findings by severity and category. Typical sections include Errors, Warnings, and Notices.
- Errors: definite problems that likely break accessibility, SEO, or functionality (e.g., missing alt attributes, broken links, invalid HTML).
- Warnings: likely issues that need review (e.g., insufficient color contrast in some contexts).
- Notices: informational items or suggestions (e.g., best-practice recommendations).
When you open an issue, SortSite supplies:
- A description of the problem
- The affected page(s) and HTML snippet or element
- Links to standards or WCAG success criteria (where applicable)
- Suggested remediation steps
Always pair automated findings with manual verification for subjective checks (e.g., keyboard navigation, screen reader behavior).
Prioritizing fixes
Use a triage approach:
- Critical functional and security issues first: broken links, server errors, mixed content, forms that don’t submit.
- Accessibility barriers that block users: missing labels, keyboard traps, ARIA misuse, serious contrast failures.
- SEO problems that affect indexing: missing title tags, duplicate content, meta robots issues.
- Usability and cosmetic issues: long pages, slow-loading assets, minor contrast issues.
- Best-practice and informational items last.
Track fixes in your issue tracker with:
- Page URL and screenshot
- SortSite rule and snippet
- Suggested fix and developer notes
- Priority and owner
Best practices for effective QA with SortSite
- Integrate scans into your workflow:
- Run full site scans weekly or monthly.
- Run targeted scans during development sprints or before releases.
- Use incremental scans for changed areas (scan only updated pages).
- Combine automated scans with manual accessibility testing and user testing.
- Create custom rule sets: tune severity or ignore false positives that are acceptable for your context.
- Monitor trends: export historical reports to track improvement or regressions.
- Educate your team: share reports and common fixes so developers learn to prevent repeat issues.
Advanced tips and features
- Authentication and session handling: configure form login flows to scan behind-auth pages. Use cookies or script the login if needed.
- PDF and non‑HTML content: enable checks for PDF accessibility and metadata where supported.
- Performance and crawling: throttle concurrency and set crawl delays to avoid server overload.
- International sites: set language headers, test localized pages, and check hreflang usage.
- Reporting formats: export reports in HTML, CSV, or other supported formats for sharing with stakeholders or importing into other systems.
- Automation: script SortSite runs (if supported) as part of CI pipelines, or schedule via OS task scheduler to produce periodic reports.
Common pitfalls and how to avoid them
- Scanning admin or private pages unintentionally — always exclude sensitive paths.
- Relying solely on automated checks — combine with manual testing.
- Overlooking performance impact — schedule heavy scans off‑peak and use crawl limits.
- Ignoring false positives — tune rules and use ignore lists to keep reports actionable.
Example workflow (small team)
- Developer fixes issues on a feature branch.
- CI triggers a SortSite single‑page scan for the changed pages.
- If critical errors appear, the build fails and a ticket is opened.
- QA runs a weekly full‑site SortSite scan and reviews new high‑priority issues.
- Product owner reviews the weekly report and reprioritizes backlog items.
Quick checklist before a major release
- Run a full-site SortSite scan.
- Resolve all critical errors and high-priority accessibility issues.
- Verify login-protected areas are scanned and pass.
- Ensure no mixed-content or major SEO blockers exist.
- Export and archive the report with developer notes for release records.
Final notes
SortSite Professional is a powerful tool for bringing many quality, accessibility, and SEO checks into a single workflow. Use it as part of a broader QA strategy—combine automated scans with manual testing and continuous integration to maintain a healthy, accessible, and search-friendly website.
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