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XPath Cheatsheet for Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)#

Certain XPath expressions are especially useful for search engine optimisation.

Content#

H1 Headline#

Count all <h1> nodes to ensure that a web page has and only has one main headline. Should not be 0 or larger than 1:

count(//h1)
Example

How to use Browserist to check whether a web page has exactly one <h1> headline tag:

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from browserist import Browser

with Browser() as browser:
    browser.open.url("https://example.com")
    assert browser.tool.count_elements("//h1") == 1

Image Alt Text#

Ensure that all images on web page have an alt text.

//img[not(@alt)]
Example

How to use Browserist to check whether a web page has images without alt text:

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from browserist import Browser

with Browser() as browser:
    browser.open.url("https://example.com")
    if browser.check_if.does_exist("//img"):
        alt_texts = browser.get.attribute.values("//img", "alt")
        for alt_text in alt_texts:
            assert len(alt_text) > 0

Meta Data#

Similarly, ensure that a web page has meta description. Should not be 0 or larger than 1:

count(//meta[@name='description']/@content)

And you can ensure that length of the meta description is between 50 and 160 characters by using the string-length() function:

string-length(/html/head/meta[@name='description']/@content) >= 50
string-length(/html/head/meta[@name='description']/@content) <= 160

Check if a web page has a canonical URL. If it has, it should only be 1:

count(//link[@rel='canonical'])

Ensure that a web page has a robots meta tag. Should not be 0 or larger than 1:

count(//meta[@name='robots'])
Example

How to use Browserist to check whether a web page has relevant meta data:

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from browserist import Browser

with Browser() as browser:
    browser.open.url("https://example.com")

    if browser.check_if.does_exist("//link[@rel='canonical']"):
        assert browser.tool.count_elements("//link[@rel='canonical']") <= 1

    assert browser.tool.count_elements("//meta[@name='robots']") == 1

    meta_description = browser.get.attribute.value("//meta[@name='description']", "content")
    assert 50 <= len(meta_description) <= 160

Page Title#

Ensure that a web page doesn't have an empty title:

/html/head/title[. != '']
Example

How to use Browserist to check whether a web page has a page title:

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from browserist import Browser

with Browser() as browser:
    browser.open.url("https://example.com")
    assert browser.check_if.does_exist("/html/head/title[. != '']")

Alternatively, there's a simpler solution without using XPath:

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    assert browser.get.page_title() != ""