Wenzel Frick

Web Audits

Web Audits is an open-source and open-data platform for automated technical analysis of websites. URLs are evaluated based on objective, measurable criteria, and the results are made publicly available as open data for benchmarking purposes.

ECOS Analysis Framework

The audit is based on the ECOS indicator, a composite index that aggregates technical metrics into four dimensions:

  • Efficient: Measuring data volume, request overhead, and loading speed.
  • Clean: Estimating the carbon footprint based on data transfer and hosting parameters.
  • Open: Evaluating technical accessibility, adherence to open web standards, and SEO best practices.
  • Safe: Analyzing infrastructure reputation (IP risk) and the implementation of security headers (CSP, HSTS).

AWS Services Used

The application is built on several interconnected AWS cloud services. Central services include:

  • Lambda functions for server-side rendering of the React Router full-stack framework and as the computing unit for performing audits.
  • DynamoDB, a managed NoSQL database, is used to store audit results.
  • EventBridge (Cron) manages daily backend processes. These calculate descriptive statistics (percentiles and means) across the entire dataset and dynamically regenerate XML sitemaps.
  • CloudFront for hosting the web app and the REST API used to query audits and data.

Open Source and Open Data

Performing audits and querying data is free of charge. To manage operational costs, the number of new audits is limited to 3,000 per day during the initial phase.

The project's code is available on GitHub and licensed under Apache 2.0.

Tech Stack

  • React Frontend
  • React Router Full-stack framework for SSR, routing, and tooling
  • AWS Cloud services for hosting, computing, and data storage
  • SST Framework for configuring and deploying AWS services
  • Code on GitHub
Link to Showcase / webaudits.org
Screenshot of the webaudits.org search mask.
URLs are entered into the search mask. Depending on the analyzed site, the audit takes approximately thirty seconds to complete.
Screenshot of the summarized audit results.
The audit is based on a composite index covering the categories of efficiency, sustainability, accessibility, and security.
Screenshot of a treemap diagram showing the composition and weighting of the ECOS score.
The composition and weighting of the partial results are visualized in different views, shown here as a treemap.
Screenshot with a pie and donut chart showing the amount of transferred data by file type.
The sub-results of the analysis are illustrated through tables and graphics.
Screenshot of the REST API documentation showing endpoints and data structures.
Data can be queried via a REST API, which is documented according to the OpenAPI 3.0.0 standard.
Screenshot of the leaderboard showing the top 100 audit results.
Lists display the highest-rated audits as well as the most recently performed analyses.
Screenshot of the descriptive statistics featuring a violin-boxplot diagram.
Descriptive statistics for the overall score and sub-scores are recalculated daily.
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