Site Validation

Site validation checks every Promptless-managed page on the site in one pass and returns a single list of findings. Each finding names the page, section and field that caused it, with a suggested fix.

When to use it

Before a launch, and after any large change: a migration, a consolidation of pages, a new menu.
As a regular check on a site several people edit.
For one page while you work, use the audit in the editor instead — see Audit While You Edit. It runs the same page checks as you type.

Site validation is run through the Promptless connector: ask your AI assistant to “validate the site”, and it calls the wordpress_validate_site tool. There is no separate report screen in wp-admin. To set up the connector, see Connector Overview.

What it checks

Search and indexing: image alt text present, placeholder content left in, meta tags, pages set to not be indexed, structured data.
Content: alt text that is a file name or a generic word such as “image”; the same alt text on several images; link text that is a bare address, has no words, or is very long; a page whose first section has no heading, which leaves the page without a main heading.
References: links to pages that are unpublished or do not exist; links to a file, such as a PDF, that is not on the site; shortcodes nothing on the site handles, which show as bracketed text; post grids that list a content type or category that no longer exists; images, videos and posters that are no longer in the media library.
Design rules: the same advice the section linter gives while building.
The site as a whole: menu items that point at a missing or unpublished page; published pages that no menu reaches; old addresses that redirect to a page that is no longer public; addresses visitors keep requesting that nothing answers. See Redirects.

By default only published pages are checked. Ask for drafts to be included if you want them. A person limited to certain departments only sees findings for the pages they can reach.

Defects and candidates

Every finding has a certainty:

Defect — decidable by a machine with no judgement, such as an image with a file name for alt text. Defects mean the site is not clean. Fix them.
Candidate — a real problem that a machine cannot decide. Alt text of “Logo” may be exactly right. Candidates are listed for a person to review and do not stop the site from being clean.

Each finding also has a severity — error, warning or information — which says how serious it is.

If you want candidates to count too, ask for a strict run.

How to validate and fix a site

Ask your assistant to validate the site. It reports a summary, then the findings page by page, then the site-wide findings.
Have it fix the defects. Each finding carries the section and field, so the assistant reads the page, corrects that field and saves.
Review the candidates yourself. Fix the ones that are wrong; record an exception for the ones that are correct as they are.
Validate again. Repeat until the summary says the site is clean.

On a large site the report comes back 100 pages at a time; the assistant continues until every page is covered.

How to record an exception

When a finding is correct as it is, tell the assistant why — for example, “the alt text Logo on the home page is right, it is our logo”. It records an exception with:

the rule the finding broke;
optionally, the page it applies to (without a page it applies site-wide);
optionally, a piece of text the finding must contain, such as the alt text;
a reason, which is required.

Exceptions are stored on the site, so everyone who validates it sees the same ones. An excused finding is never hidden: it is listed as excused, with its reason. The editor shows it too, in a collapsed Excused group in the page audit.

An exception that matched nothing on a full run of the whole site is reported as stale. That happens when the thing it excused has changed or been removed. Ask the assistant to remove stale exceptions, so an old judgement cannot quietly excuse a new problem.

Limits and common problems

Colour contrast is not measured. It needs a browser. Promptless calculates contrast when a section is rendered; see Accessibility for how it is tested.
Links to other websites are not followed. Only addresses on your own site are checked.
Nothing is changed automatically. Validation only reads, apart from saving exceptions. Fixes are made by you or your assistant.
Search checks are missing when an SEO plugin is active. When Yoast, Rank Math or a similar plugin is active, the meta tag and indexing checks are left to that plugin.
A stale exception is not reported. Stale status is only decided on a full run: every page, with no page list and no remaining pages to fetch.
The editor audit shows fewer findings than validation. The editor checks the page you are on. Design-rule advice and site-wide findings such as menus and redirects appear only in site validation.

Available since Promptless WP 1.8.1.