Everyone loves a smooth, bug-free web application. Whether you’re a budding startup or a global giant, the importance of web application testing is clear. It’s no longer just an extra step; it’s a must-do. For a memorable user experience, your web application should be responsive and free from glitches.

At its core, web application testing is about spotting issues before your website goes public. It’s about making sure your web application does what it’s supposed to do. By prioritizing web application testing, businesses can boost quality, speed up the development process, and allow their developers to focus on creating rather than fixing.

These tests look at many things: how the website performs, its user-friendliness, compatibility across devices, its features, and its security. They also check if the site is accessible to everyone, can handle lots of visitors, and works as a whole. Remember, even a small change in the code can cause a problem. Testing early can save you time and money by catching issues before they grow.

There are plenty of reasons to embrace web application testing:

• Finding and fixing broken links.
• Making sure the web application works in various situations.
• Confirming the application does what it’s meant to.
• Providing a seamless, bug-free user experience.
• Ensuring a top-notch website.

Depending on what you need, there are several testing methods:

Functionality Testing
This checks things like APIs, the user interface, and both client and server interactions. You can do this manually or use automated tools. Key areas include:

• Test Links:
  Ensure no broken links, including Outgoing, MailTo, Anchor, and Internal links.
• Test Forms:
  Check default values, scripting expectations, and form optimization.
• Test Business Workflow:
  Ensure negative scenarios are tested and appropriate error messages are displayed.
• Test Cookies:
  Verify the behavior of cookies, especially during deletion or cache clearance.

2. Usability Testing Of Web Application:
   A crucial aspect of web application testing, it focuses on content and site navigation:

• Testing The Content:
  Ensure no grammatical or spelling errors. Images should have “alt” text.
• Testing The Site Navigation:
  Buttons, menus, and links should be visible and consistent across pages.

3. Compatibility Testing Of Web Application:
   This ensures the site displays correctly across devices, including different browsers and mobile devices.
4. Interface Testing Of Web Application:
   The three major areas of testing that are included in the interface testing of a web application are:

• Database Server:
  Ensure queries return expected results.
• Web Server:
  Verify it handles all application requests without service denial.
• Application:
  Ensure user requests are correctly processed.

5. Performance Testing Of Web Application:
   This tests the application under various conditions, ensuring optimal performance even under stress.

• Testing the response time at different connection speeds.
• The site is stress tested to know the breaking point of the web application under peer loads at peak times.
• The load test of the web application is done to check the behavior of the site in peak and average loads.
• The testing of the site being crashed under load is done, and also it is checked how the web application recovers.

6. Database Testing Of Web Application:
   The database, being a vital component, requires thorough testing to ensure accurate data retrieval and error-free query execution.

• Testing the response time of the query.
• Fine-tune the response time, if required, after the testing.
• Test that the data retrieved from the web application database is accurately displayed in the web application.
• Test if any kind of errors occurs while executing the queries.

7. Security Testing Of Web Application:
   Security testing is done to know about the application’s security over the web. Data theft and unauthorized access are becoming the most common issues. There are some techniques to conduct security testing and determine the system’s security level.

Some of the web application vulnerabilities are SQL Injection Attacks, Cross-Site Scripting (XSS), Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF), HTTP Verb Tampering, HTTP Response Splitting, Injection Flaw, Insecure Cryptographic Storage, Insecure Deserialization, Insecure Digest, Insecure Direct Object References, Broken Authentication And Session Management, Insufficient Session Expirations, Sensitive Data Exposure, Failure To Restrict URL Access, Missing Function Level Access Control, Security Misconfiguration,  Unvalidated Redirects And Forwards, Components With Known Vulnerabilities.

Security testing techniques are Monitor Access Control Management, Dynamic Analysis (Penetration Testing), Static Analysis, Check Server Access Controls, Ingress/Egress/Entry Points, Brute-Force Attacks, SQL injection, and URL Manipulation.

• The test that files or documents which are restricted are not downloadable without proper access.
• The testing of unauthorized access to secure pages is not allowed.

Testing that the site redirects to the encrypted SSL pages on the use of SSL certificates.