How do you visualize website structure
-
How do you visualize a website structure in terms of (categories of) pages and interlinking. I use such visuals for discussing what you are actually doing now and what can be improved. I have made visuals I few times myself (basically making boxes representing categories of pages and lines representing internal links), but I found that I soon ran into a scheme of huge proportions and needed more paper and more time. Appreciate your thoughts!
-
DYNO Mapper is great at visualizing a website's structure. It is the best Sitemap Generator that I have used because it also performs a content audit and includes Google Analytics integration. It's pretty sweet how you can sort and filter pages based on Google Analytics metrics. If you are looking for a great discovery and planning tool I would give it a try.
-
I played around with Cytoscape and I'd definitely be interested of the spreadsheet as well!
-
Online-Tool diagramly (free) You can Save it as XML, JPG, PNG and SVG.
Or Lovely Charts (not free), but you can put in text-Sitemaps for a "Autovisualisation". -
I print it out and lay it out on a large table in the office. Just seeing it visually lets me get to grips with it a lot easier than scrolling through unconnected pages on a screen.
Print small and get a big table and you can fit a large sitemap there Get a lot of A4s and some scissors and tape and you will be surprised how much better your understanding is by the time you've finished
-
I'm a big fan of Smart draw but just recently had a colleague share a chart with me via Google Docs which appeared to work very well for creating a flow chart and mapping out site structure.
-
-
Open Office Draw is free and has a series of flow chart icons but it's a manual job and takes a bit of getting used to (price is right though). Anything like this falls apart for larger sites though as you would be there all week.
Would love to know if there is a firm favourite amongst people as it's certainly helpful to visualise interlinking and structure.
-
Damien, I'd be interested in taking a look at this as well, if you're OK sending it over to me. We used to use a profiler program that now seems to be dead.
-
You can also download a trial of Black Widow - http://download.cnet.com/1770-20_4-0-.html?query=black+widow&searchtype=downloads&tag=opensearch
Once you've scanned a site, it builds a site architecture that looks like Windows Explorer. You can take screen shots and place them in your documents as needed.
-
Glad to.
I'm in the middle of rewriting the macro at the moment as my first attempt was a tad on the slow side. I can skype it across to you when I finish it (today or tomorrow).
-
This sounds like a great idea. I'm certainly interested in seeing how you handle the Xenu data if you're willing to share!
-
I'm currently using a combination of (mainly free) apps to map my company's website to visualise link flow and indentify isolated content that hasn't been correctly linked in.
I start with a site crawl using Xenu's Link Sleuth from which I can export a list of all pages as well as a list of all the links. I import the two lists into Excel where the data gets cleaned and additional information extracted by a macro. The final step is to import the link and page data in Cytoscape which performs the visualisation.
Don't be fooled by the biological focus of Cytoscape, it will work with any data as long as it's broken down into nodes (pages) and edges (links). It incorporates a number of visualisation algorithms, and allows you to filter a selection of nodes which can then be copied to a subnetwork and visualised separately.
It handles our small site of 2k pages and 50k internal links with ease, and I know a geneticist who uses it to map networks of over 7k genes with some 300k interactions.
If you're interested, I can provide a copy of the spreadsheet I use for manipulating the raw Xenu data.
-
ProtoShare.com is the best tool of that kind for me
-
Thanks Nick, really handy, appreciate it.
-
I like using post-its, but that can get ridiculous as well. Here is one of my faves for mind-mapping, and it's completely free: https://bubbl.us -
-
Apart from everything mentioned already - bubbl.us is a great free online tool that lets you save and export your visualisations.
-
You might want to check out this link, which works for new versions of Omigraffe.
Let me know what you think.
-
I hadn't noticed that - shame, could have been interesting if they kept up development.
-
I checked out WriteMaps, and it was very very nice for small sites. It is a pity that it does not seem to be maintained anymore. Last communication from the creator seems to be from 2009.
-
I checked out WriteMaps, and it was very very nice for small sites. It is a pity that it does not seem to be maintained anymore. Last communication from the creator seems to be from 2009.
-
Smart Draw is seriously awesome; just downloaded for a 7 day free trial. I used Mockingbird in the past but SD looking way better now.
-
I'm a little late to the party (just trying out the new Q&A for the first time).
I was looking for a solution myself yesterday and found two free ones that, while definitely not as full-featured as those shared by ninjamarketer, might do the trick.
WriteMaps is a nifty tool (free to use) that looks to have some potential.
SlickMap is an HTML/CSS template you can use to add up to three levels of hierarchy, and it looks pretty sharp (though it's clearly not as quick/convenient as some of the other tools).
-
I use Visio to start with and when I go in to more details in terms of pages, I use https://gomockingbird.com/
This allows me to share the drawings easily.
-
Another vote for Smartdraw!
-
I'll use the mac software omnigraffle to chart out my site. Also someone came up with a cool applescript that will take a regular xml sitemap and turn it into omnigraffle.
-
Great.Thanks
-
Sure. Your welcome.
-
Thanks Sameer, I will check these out.
-
I have used PowerMapper and am relatively happy with it. It fails miserably on large scale websites. I've spent days researching website structure visualistion and found that there are no rubust industry strength solutions out there available to general community. We're in the process of writing our own software for that reason.
-
Hey Jos: I use a vector based drawing program (CorelDraw) and draw boxes with lines like you. I can highlight main pages by border thickness and colors.
It's probably not nearly as elegant as Sameer's suggestions, but I've used it for so many years, it's as comfortable as a pair of old jeans
-
I second the smartdraw software.
I've been happy with it because you can do several other things with it.
-
Thanks Sameer, I'll have to check these out
-
Great question. I tend to just map it out by hand categories / sub categories / products/services but I can see how that can get quite daunting on very large sites.
-
I would assume you are referring to site architecture. If this is the case then there are several good tools in market that are used by dev / designers to map out the site artchitecture or sitemaps.
Microsoft visio http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/visio/
Power mapper http://www.powermapper.com/
Smart draw http://www.smartdraw.com/
I have used smart draw for flow charts and found it lot easier to use.
Hope this helps.
Thanks
Sameer
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
What’s the best tool to visualize internal link structure and relationships between pages on a single site?
I‘d like to review the internal linking structure on my site. Is there a tool that can visualize the relationships between all of the pages within my site?
Web Design | | QBSEO0 -
Mergers & Acquisitions - Website Transition Good practice
Hi everyone, I was wondering if anyone has come across good practice for maintaining websites after a merger or acquisition where there needs to be an association between two websites of the two companies involved. For an acquisition, I'm considering moving the acquired company to a sub domain of the parent company e.g. aquiredcompany.parentcompany.com. On both websites there wmay be a prominant popup so visitors can switch between the websites if they have visited the incorrect one. One worry I have is the acquired company has some good rankings, which I want to keep. I will of course manage the process through 301 redirects. But I was wondering if anyone has any thoughts on this approach or can suggest any better solutions. Thanks in advance, Stuart
Web Design | | Stuart260 -
Website removed from Bing and Yahoo index
Hi, are website servicemanualrepairs.com was removed from Bing and Yahoo index, I emailed Bing via Webmaster tools they first said it was Backlinks I did look via at the inbound links tool to analyze the site's Backlinks I did find 20 links and used the Disavow tool, they said "I'm afraid but after careful and thorough investigation, your site still did not meet the Bing and Microsoft guidelines You may also refer to the things to avoid section of the Webmaster Guidelines for additional information. As an effect, the site is still blocked and it cannot be lifted" the website was in Bing and Yahoo index for 3 Years and only after the 20 Backlinks were added to the site it was de-index any help would be greatly appreciated Thanks
Web Design | | vista5211 -
SEO strategy for UK / US websites
Hi, We currently have a UK-focused site on www.palmatin.com ; We're now targeting the North American market as well, but the contents of the site need to be different from UK. One option was to create another domain for the NA market but I assume it would be easier to rank with palmatin.com though. What would you suggest to do, if a company is targeting two different countries in the same language? thanks, jaan
Web Design | | JaanMSonberg0 -
How can a Pincode finder website be SEO optimised?
Guys, I wanted to build a simple Pincode finder website for India. The targeted visitors as is obvious will be from India. Alike other Pincode finder websites, the users in this case too will have to key in the location / area of whose pincode he is looking for and they will get Pincode from that very location / area. Other than this, users will also come to this website when they search for something like " <location name="">pincode</location>" on Google (for instance, users will search for something like "Hiranandani Gardens Powai Pincode") Along with data fethced from our sources via Indian postal departments and other data available in public domain, we shall be using data from Google Maps API too. My question in regards to the same is as follows: What should the page-structure / structure of the website be for ranking well on Google? What should be the URL structure? Other suggestions to rank well on Google in this regards? Competition: (You can search for the term "Hiranandani Gardens Powai Pincode" to know how these sites show data) http://www.getpincode.info http://www.pincode.net.in Pls. help...
Web Design | | ShalinTJ0 -
Need help in website URL Structure
I have been working on a brand new website currently it is live but I have disallow Googlebots temporarily as I dint want any negative impact. The business of the site is to generate leads , they install and sell Stairlifts and used Stairlifts. There are two main categories New Stairlifts and Reconditioned Stairlifts Currently the URL for new Stairlifts is : http://willowstairlifts.co.uk/stairlifts/ and for Reconditioned Stairlifts is: http://willowstairlifts.co.uk/reconditioned-stairlifts/ My concerns are that the word Stairlifts is mentioned twice in the urls so is it going to have a negative impact or panda penalty? I am thinking of changing them to http://willowstairlifts.co.uk/new/ and the product pages to display as http://willowstairlifts.co.uk/new/brooks/ Currently its http://willowstairlifts.co.uk/stairlifts/brooks/ Same with reconditioned Stairlifts I like to change it to : http://willowstairlifts.co.uk/reconditioned Also its product pages to http://willowstairlifts.co.uk/reconditioned/brooks/ As currently its http://willowstairlifts.co.uk/reconditioned-stairlifts/brooks/ Thanks
Web Design | | conversiontactics0 -
Wordpress SEO Change of Structure
Hi, I have a Wordpress SEO Question. I ran the SEOMOZ checker on my website and it discovered roughly 70 of my 250 blogs had a URL length problem. I have removed the year and month from the WP structure as I read elsewhere that it is not important. The blogs displayed as follows: domain.com/blog/2011/02/contents-of-the-blog and the new structure is: domain.com/blog/contents-of-the-blog I have resubmitted the new structure to Google Webmaster Tools XML and updating the on-page sitemap on my main site. My blog was cached on 25<sup>th</sup> October and seems to be caching every 7 days, my website cached on the 24th and I wonder if I should do any follow up work to ensure the content gets crawled properly. a) Individually 301 redirect the old URLs to the new. b) Individual Canonical links for each. c) Adding the old pages to the robots file and disallowing. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Web Design | | tdsnet0 -
How does the "first link" rule work with the "reasonable surfer patent" when it comes to the main navigation for a website?
In trying to figure out navigation for a new website, I am struggling with the first link rule vs. the reasonable surfer patent where the first link rule implies that Google "counts" the first link to a page including navigation, and the reasonable surfer patent that implies that navigation links carry less weight than body copy links. What is the best solution for creating main navigation so that it doesn't take away from the body copy links?
Web Design | | cindyt-170380