You can generate Site Visualisations from the top navigation bar on a completed Audit. On smaller screens, this will simply display as 'Visualisations', as per the screenshot below.
Click the dropdown, and select the particular map you wish to see:
There are a range of specific settings and usage patterns that only apply for the Site Visualisation graphs, which you can understand further by reading below (and exploring yourself in the tool!).
Right click for context menu
If you hover over any node your will see details of the URL including some link and meta data:
Right-click on the node will bring up a context menu with some futher options:
Where 'Open in Browser' and 'Copy URL' are self explanatory. 'URL Details' will slide out the complete URL Details panel for that URL, so you can dig into the details, view the crawl path, export data etc... as normal.
'Rebuild from this URL' is perhaps less intuitive, if you select this then the entire graph will build out again, using this specific node as the starting point. The same result can be achieved by...
Enter URL in 'browser bar' to rebuild from URL
Type in a URL, or select from the dropdown, and Sitebulb will rebuild the visualisation as if this URL is the start URL. Like this:
Left-click zoom to focus
If you want to zoom in on any particular node, just left click and the graph will focus in:
Settings menu on top right
The signature 'settings cog' will open up a panel where various elements of the graph can be configured:
Adjusting these elements will alter the graph 'live', so you can customise and toggle with the sizes to your heart's content.
Highlight non-indexable URLs
All the site visualisations map both indexable and non-indexable URLs (up to a maximum of 10,000 URLs). There is a toggle at the top of the settings menu to highlight non-indexable URLs.
On some sites this won't make any difference, but on others it can complete change your understanding of the website.
Consider this example, what looks on the surface a relatively normal Crawl Map:
Toggle non-indexable and BAM, you can see that half the map is red (non-indexable) which in this case is due to a massive issue with canonicals:
Video Explanation
Understand the different types of graph
In total there are 6 visualisation options, which are based on 2 different ways to map the data, and 3 different visual styles.
2 different ways to map the data
Crawl - maps out URLs based on where they were first discovered by the crawler.
Directory - maps URLs based on the directory that a URL 'lives in', determined by its URL path.
3 different visual styles
Map - the classic 'force-directed' design, which spreads out the nodes to fill the canvas.
Tree - a hierarchical design, where content is displayed in levels, like the branches and leaves of a tree.
Radial – like the tree map, but pushed into a radial design - so it still shows the hierarchy.
So we end up with 3 'Crawl' graphs: Crawl Map, Crawl Tree, Crawl Radial
And 3 'Directory' graphs: Directory Map, Directory Tree and Directory Radial
The core difference between Crawl and Directory is that the Crawl graphs are mapping actual link relationships that were found by the crawler, whereas the Directory graphs are simply showing the hierarchy of the folder structure, and the connecting lines don't represent links.
View examples and explanations from the left hand menu.
Crawl Map
The Crawl Map plots URLs based on where they were first discovered by the crawler. It only includes the first discovered link location, so although this graph can be considered a representation of the site structure, it is not a link map.
Crawl Maps were the original site visualisation that Sitebulb offered, and we have lots more examples and explanation on this page.
Crawl Tree
As this is a 'Crawl' type, again it maps URLs out based on where they were first discovered by the crawler. The tree structure allows you to see how child URLs sit 'underneath' their parent URL, and offers a visualisation of how content is grouped in the eyes of the crawler.
On big ones like this you really need to zoom in to get the fidelity to make sense of the data. But the wide angle view is quite pretty
Crawl Radial
Again this is mapping URLs based on where they were first discovered by the crawler. The radial structure allows you to see the hierarchy of the site and how content sits at different levels.
Directory Map
Map shows how the website is structured based on the directory that a URL 'lives in' based on its URL path. For example, the URL https://example.com/blog/post-1 is in the directory: https://example.com/blog/
The Directory Map is a representation of how content has been clustered by design, and will often show topical clusters with more clarity than the Crawl Map. However, it can include nodes that do not resolve (or 'exist' as real URLs) but are necessary for the directory grouping.
They will often reveal some odd looking patterns, like this example where almost all of the content sits under a single directory:
Directory Tree
This is also a directory type, so nodes are organized based on the directory that a URL 'lives in'.
The tree structure allows you to see how child URLs sit 'underneath' their parent URL, where the parent URL is a directory on the website. It is also worth noting that sites which do not use any kind of hierarchical folder structure (e.g. everything sites in the root) then all of the directory graphs are nigh on useless!
Directory Radial
This is another directory type, but this time with the radial design - which allows you to see the hierarchy of the site and how different topical clusters are grouped together by folder. It is possibly the most useful graph for understanding/communicating the way in which content is grouped together on a website.
