What are the different criteria required to stop the testing of a website?

The criteria required to 'stop testing' is determined by many factors. When a test plan is created it is critical to define the exit criteria. Following are some of the decisions we take to explicitly stop testing during the testing phase.

Constraint of time and budget

Time and budget have a critical role in deciding when to stop testing. Testing will be stopped when the budget is exhausted. Some projects are time bound and postponing the release date will have a critical impact. Hence testing will also be stopped when the timeline is exhausted.

Execution of a predefined base set

In this case, there will be a predefined base set of test cases that can ensure that all the critical areas have been tested. So testing will be stopped when these cases are executed successfully.

Testing till the number of failed test cases drops below a threshold/ All the critical issues are fixed

Testing will be stopped when the failure rate drops below a certain threshold which is predefined. Sometimes testing will be stopped when all the critical bugs are fixed. Cosmetic bugs will be fixed during the coming releases.

For a testing team, this will be a challenging situation. So if you are a tester in any of the above situations, you can act accordingly and decrease the volume of testing.