Getting started

What is Silktide?

Silktide is a tool for testing and improving websites. You can use it for a high level overview of how well a site is doing, or you can choose to dive right into the gritty details of improving individual pages – it’s up to you.

Adding a website

After logging in to Silktide, click the red Add website button to start adding a new site. You only need to add a website once. In future, you will simply re-test the website you added. Learn more about adding websites.

Understanding your report

All reports start with a summary like this. Depending on the version of Silktide you’re using, it may look different:

Key points are listed at the bottom. These are divided into good (green ticks) and bad (red/yellow warnings). Clicking on a point will show you much more information.
You can explore screens down the left-hand side and dive into any area of interest.

Where to start?

We recommend you start with Spelling and Broken links. Issues identified here are usually quick wins – once they’re fixed, you should be familiar with how Silktide works and ready to tackle more challenging problems.

Approving and ignoring issues

Some tests can report potential issues which are not actual problems. For example, a computer may not recognize an obscure spelling you use.

When this happens, an action button will be shown beside the issue, for example, Learn spelling:

Whenever you see a magnifying glass icon in Silktide, you can click on it to open the Inspector. This shows you issues visually, on the pages that they appear on. From inside the Inspector you can usually choose to approve or ignore issues, and to move on to the next page of issues.

Add your own logo

Your logo can appear in the top right corner of every report. See how to set your logo.

Exporting reports

You can export your whole report into a PDF document, which is ideal for presenting to clients, prospects and managers. Or you can export a single table of results into a spreadsheet.

Automatic email alerts

If you’re using Silktide Monitor to improve your websites, we highly recommend you tell Silktide to send you an email when something changes.

Excluding tests, pages and more

Often you may wish to exclude something from your tests, to make your results more manageable. You can:

Most tests provide even more specific options on what you wish to exclude.

Hiding pop-up windows, cookie banners and more

Some websites will load a pop-up, cookie banner, chat window or other plugin on your pages. These can stop you from seeing your website properly in Silktide. Learn how to remove pop-ups from your Silktide reports.