Working with Baselines in Sitepager

What Is a Baseline?

In Sitepager, a baseline is a reference set of snapshots that represent the expected visual appearance of your website under a specific configuration. It helps you track changes and maintain consistency across your site.

How Baselines Work in Sitepager

Creating and Managing Baselines

When you run a Check for the first time with specific settings, Sitepager crawls your site and captures snapshots of all pages included in the configuration. This first run is automatically saved as the baseline for future comparisons. If you prefer to save the configuration without running the Check, you can use the 'Save Check' option to run it later.

Each configuration (e.g., mobile or desktop view) has its own baseline. For example:

• A mobile Check for "Website A" creates a baseline for mobile pages.

• A desktop Check for "Website A" creates a separate baseline for desktop pages.

If you change any settings, like wait times or visual thresholds, a new configuration is created, and its first run becomes the baseline for that configuration.

Multi-Baseline Support: Sitepager supports multiple baselines for different configurations, such as mobile vs. desktop, different regions or A/B testing. Each configuration runs independently, allowing you to track changes accurately and tailor visual tests to your goals.

Updating Baselines

You can mark any subsequent Check of a configuration as the new baseline. For example, if you redesign your homepage or make planned updates, you can update the baseline to reflect the changes.

To do this, go to the Check Report page and click the 'Set as Baseline' button to save the current state as the new baseline. This ensures that future comparisons align with your updated baseline.

Re-running Checks and Comparing to Baselines

To re-run a Check, go to 'All Configs' in Sitepager. Choose a saved config and re-run it.

Sitepager compares the new snapshots to the baseline and highlights visual or SEO-related changes, such as missing metadata or altered content. This helps you quickly identify issues that could affect your site’s design, functionality, or search rankings.

Why Baselines Matter

Baselines are essential for keeping your visual tests accurate and relevant. They allow you to:

• Experiment with setups: Adjust settings like wait times or visual thresholds to ensure accurate results and meaningful comparisons.

• Focus on key areas: Create baselines for specific goals like testing regional content, testing interactions like clicks or hovers, or advanced use cases such as A/B testing. Separate baselines for each version ensure independent tracking and comparison.

• Manage updates effectively: Use baselines in a staging environment to test redesigns without affecting the live site, keeping Checks separate.

Maintaining and Optimizing Baselines

Multi-Baseline Management

• Name Configurations Clearly: Use descriptive names to quickly identify baselines (e.g., "Mobile-Homepage" or "US-LandingPage"). This helps you quickly find and re-run saved configurations for consistent comparisons.

• Review Regularly: Periodically review and update baselines to ensure they match your site’s design and functionality.

Refining Checks

• Start Small and Scale Up: Test a few key pages first to refine your settings. Once satisfied, expand to a site-wide audit to ensure consistency across all pages.

• Exclude Dynamic Content: For pages with changing elements like banners or carousels, use Sitepager’s Dynamic Content Selectors to exclude these from tests, keeping comparisons focused on static elements.

• Adjust Scope: Use include/exclude URLs to focus tests on critical pages and avoid testing irrelevant ones.

Conclusion

Baselines are the foundation of visual testing in Sitepager. With features like multi-baseline support, Sitepager helps you track and manage changes across configurations and keeps your website consistent. Whether you’re testing a redesign or maintaining your site, baselines ensure your site reflects your goals and intended design.