Learn how to set up and run your very first Sitebulb audit.
Within Sitebulb, every time you crawl a website, it is saved as an 'Audit', which is essentially the crawl data, analysis and reports. Audits are organized into Projects, so in order to start an Audit, you need to set it up as a Project.
Give your Project a name, and enter the Start URL, which is simply the URL from which Sitebulb will begin crawling. Typically this will be the homepage of the domain you are auditing.
There are a few additional options which you can customise also:
Copy From - You can copy settings of previous projects to new projects by selecting a previous audit from the dropdown.
Audit Type (Standard or Sample) - 'Standard' is fine for most audits, however you may wish to switch to a sample audit for particularly large sites or sites you do not know very well.
Crawler Type (HTML or Chrome) - The HTML Crawler is default, and fine for most websites. However you will need to switch to Chrome if you wish to audit Performance, or if you are crawling a site with high JavaScript dependence (e.g. a React website).
Device (Mobile or Desktop) - Select whether to use a mobile or desktop user-agent, which can affect how the server responds to the request, and in some cases, what data is returned.
Once you hit 'Save and Continue', Sitebulb will perform some 'pre-audit checks', and then take you to the Audit setup screen.
The purpose of the pre-audit check is to identify any potential issues that may hamper Sitebulb crawling the website, and help advise you which settings to use.
You are then able to choose from the range of data analysis options, which determine what kind of data Sitebulb will select. If you are unsure what to choose, or this is your first Sitebulb audit, just leave the default options ticked and hit the Start Now button. To learn more about these settings, explore the Crawl & Audit Settings documentation.
This will also create your new Project, in which your Audit will live, once the Audit has completed running.