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Enabling and Testing SpeedWorkers

Updated over a year ago

πŸ“˜ This article describes enabling, disabling, and testing the SpeedWorkers service. SpeedWorkers is part of Botify's Activation Suite, available as an option with a Botify Pro or Enterprise plan.

Overview

The SpeedWorkers service is enabled by default. If you need to disable SpeedWorkers, you can disable it in the SpeedWorkers Control Center settings. You can also create tests to ensure the service is working as expected.

Enabling/Disabling SpeedWorkers

Disabling SpeedWorkers deactivates the service, meaning pages from the page inventory will no longer be delivered to search engines. Fetch, render, and cache processes from SpeedWorkers will still be live. To disable fetch and cache for individual inventory sources instead of disabling the SpeedWorkers service, refer to the Managing SpeedWorkers Page Inventory article.

To enable or disable SpeedWorkers:

  1. Access the SpeedWorkers Control Center settings by navigating to Activation > Speedworkers > Settings > Inventory.
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  2. The delivery toggle indicates the current status of the service. Slide the toggle to the left to deactivate SpeedWorkers or slide it to the right to enable the SpeedWorkers service. When you deactivate SpeedWorkers, pages from the page inventory will no longer be delivered to search engines, though fetch, render, and cache processes from SpeedWorkers will still be live.
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  3. If you deactivated SpeedWorkers, click the Deactivate button in the confirmation message.

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Testing the SpeedWorkers Service

Testing the service status in the Control Center allows you to check that your SpeedWorkers integration is working properly. SpeedWorkers uses a Botify bot to check that URLs are properly delivered when search bots request pages. Rules are tested every 10 minutes.

To create a test:

  1. Click the Create a test link in the Current Service Status section of the Control Center settings.
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    sw_servicetest.png

  2. Choose a test rule type. You can choose more than one rule, except the "Out of Scope" rule; you cannot combine this rule type with any other type.

  3. In the "Define your test URL" section, identify the URL where the rule should be tested. This must be a specific URL, including the protocol (e.g., http://www.example.com, https://www.example.com).

  4. In the "Define your test bot" section, select the bot to perform the test. The default bot is a Botify bot that performs similarly to other bots to test the pages that SpeedWorkers returns.
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  5. Click Save.

Understanding Test Results

Tests are displayed in the Current Service Status section with their results. Rules are automatically tested every 10 minutes, but you can click the Test Now link to test immediately.

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Test Failures

If a test fails, a warning message is displayed throughout SpeedWorkers:​

sw_testfailwarning.png


​Hover over the Failed label in the Control Center Status column to view a possible explanation:
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Test Rule Types

You can define any of the following rule types to test your SpeedWorkers settings. Click a rule type to select it; click the rule again to deselect it.

We recommend you set up at least one of each rule type, and most sites will benefit from multiple Cache Hit test rules (e.g., product pages, order pages, support pages).

  • Cache Hit: For pages that should be in "cache hit" based on your inventory and cache behavior settings, this test checks if SpeedWorkers serves the cached version of the page. The URL you test must be a page currently in page inventory.

  • Cache Miss: For pages that should be in "cache miss" based on your inventory and cache behavior settings, this test checks if SpeedWorkers responds with "cache miss" in the header.

  • Force Timeout: For pages with a large timeout that should be in "cache hit" based on your inventory and cache behavior settings, this test checks if SpeedWorkers still serves the cached version of the page. When you select this test type, you must identify the number of minutes to wait before the cache is tested in the Timeout field that displays:
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    sw_forcetimeout.png

  • Out of Scope: For out-of-scope pages based on your inventory and cache behavior settings, this test checks if SpeedWorkers does not serve them. Out-of-scope tests cannot be paired with any other rule type.


See also:

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