Tracking the URL's used in the application and having the ability to modify them

Any software application would be using many URL's in them. For example, when you take a product, you could have the following URL's in the product:
- A link for the product's home page on the organization site
- Links for Help pages
- Links for Video tutorial
- Links for customer support
- Links for online pages where the workflow is a mix of desktop and online components
- A link where a customer can buy the product
- When the product used 3rd party components, the workflow may be pointing to 3rd party links

There are complications that come in because of the 3rd party links. For example, I have run into cases where the 3rd party component that we were using became like an orphan because the organization that had provided us the component became bankrupt and closed down (was not purchased by another organization, just shut down). In this case, the component still continued to work, but the link was no longer existing. However, the link was the last part of the workflow and there would be a percentage of the users who would still click on the link and thus run into a problem.
For this purpose, the policy that should be followed should be to ensure that all the links that are actually used in the application are redirect links, where the redirect happens on the servers of the organization and the target of the link can be modified. Doing it in such a way will ensure that even in the case of the above situation where the link for the 3rd party does not exist, the modification of the redirect URL can happen on the company server and point to an alternative workflow (such an alternative workflow could even mean just pointing out to the customers that because of business reasons, the final part of the workflow does not work any more and apologize for the same). This is better than being in a situation where the workflow leads to an error, since that makes the customers think that something is not working, and if the error is not rectified, they start wondering about why the organization is not correcting the error.
However, there is a lot of book-keeping that needs to happen for this. All these links, with the date of creation, the target destination and the person who created the links (and of course, any description of what the link was meant for) are essential pieces of information to capture. This ensures that in the future, if the person who created the link is no longer with the organization, the replacing person has a good amount of knowledge about these links.

How will you check a web application for broken links using QTP?

Checking for the broken and ill links forms a very important aspect of any web testing profile. The below mentioned are few testings which take the priority of the web testing check list:

1. Usability testing
2. Functionality testing
3. Compatibility testing
4. Interface testing
5. Security testing
6. Performance testing

Out of all these the functionality testing tests the following basic aspects of a web page or site or application:

1. all the links in web pages
2. data base connection
3. forms in the web pages
4. cookies

When it comes to checking of the links the following links are tested:

1. out going links from a specific domain
2. internal links
3. links jumping on same page
4. links for sending mails
5. orphan pages and lastly
6. broken  links

Our focus is on last aspect i.e., testing of the broken links in a web page, site or web application with the help of the quick test professional. 

What are broken links?

- Broken links are also termed as dead links since they are permanently unavailable and hence cannot be accessed by the user. 

- If you would have observed you might have surely come across 404 error while browsing some site. 

- This signifies the presence of a broken link. 

- Using quick test professional, the broken links can be identified during the run time itself by following any one of the two methods mentioned below:

1. via manual creation of a check point
2. via automatic page check point

How a broken link be checked manually by creating a page check point?

- A direct menu option is not available in the quick test professional for incorporating a page check point. 

- Therefore, you need to take assistance of a standard check point. 

- What you actually need, is to click on the start recording session and then select insert option, then check point and finally standard check point option.

- You can use F12 if it works for you.

- Get the hand pointer on the web page and click OK. 

- You will get a page check point properties dialog box which has a broken link check box. 

- You need to check that box and click OK. 

- After this, you need to run the scripts and check the status of links in broken link result. 

- If the links pointing only to the current host have to be checked then you need to check the box titled check only links to current host by going to the tools menu and then selecting web options. 

- Similarly, if the links pointing to all the hosts have to be checked then this box has to be kept unchecked. 

For following the second method you need to go through the following:

Tools à options à web à advanced

- You will get two boxes labeled “broken links” and “create a check point for each page while recording”, check these both boxes. 

Now every time the quick test professional starts recording on a new page, a check point will be automatically included for all the broken links. 

One thing that you should know is that the quick test professional experiences some issues with the windows vista if the internet explorer version that you using is 7.0. 

Tabbed browsing is something that is not supported by the quick test professional especially in Microsoft internet explorer. 

An alternative to this can be to disable tabbed browsing first and then proceed with quick test professional. In internet explorer the quick test professional may not be able to recognize the web objects.