Chapter 4: Working with HTML Reports

  • Article

At the heart of Content Analyzer's reporting capability is the WebMap, a compact information base that represents the content and structure of a Web site and includes a wealth of helpful information about the site's resources. Content Analyzer uses the WebMap to generate a comprehensive set of linked HTML-formatted reports for sophisticated site evaluation and problem solving. You can use these reports to analyze your site resources, track changes to your site, and find broken links. Not only are Content Analyzer's reports linked to each other, but they are also hot linked to the site resources. Once you've pinpointed a particular page or other map object that you want to examine, you can jump directly to it and see what's going on firsthand. This chapter does the following:

  • Explains how to generate site reports: You can specify that site reports be automatically generated when you first map a site, or you can have Content Analyzer generate site reports later.

  • Describes how to use the reports to manage your site: After analyzing details of your site and generating reports, Content Analyzer displays the Site Summary Report in your browser. This report offers general information about your site and serves as a jumping-off point from which you can view additional, more detailed HTML reports.

  • Lists and describes the reports that are generated 

Topics in this chapter:

Generating Content Analyzer Site Reports

Managing Your Site with Content Analyzer Site Reports

Available Site Reports

Generating Content Analyzer Site Reports

There are several ways to generate site reports--when you're creating the new WebMap or later, after you have already created the map.

Note The following procedure uses an example in which you create a new map from a URL. You could also create a new map from a file. (For information about creating WebMaps, see Chapter 3, "Creating and Customizing WebMaps.")

To generate reports when you are creating the map

  1. From the File menu, choose New Map from URL.

  2. In the Home Page Address box, enter the URL of the site you want to map.

  3. Select the Generate Site Reports checkbox.

  4. After specifying the mapping options you want to use, click OK.

  5. When the Generate Site Reports dialog box appears, specify the location in which to save the report files. Content Analyzer automatically names the files with a prefix based on the domain name of the site you are mapping and appends text that identifies the report file. For example, if you map www.microsoft.com, the Site Summary Report name is microsoft_summary.html. If the default prefix doesn't suit your needs, you can specify another in the Report Prefix box.

  6. To save a copy of the map (for example, www.microsoft.wmp) with the site reports, select the checkbox called Save Copy of Map to Report Directory.

  7. Click OK.

When Content Analyzer has finished mapping and analyzing your site, the Site Summary Report appears in your browser.

Note By default, the Explore Entire Site checkbox is selected in the New Map dialog box. If your site is very large, you may want to clear this checkbox so that you can create a smaller map (by limiting the number of pages or levels to map; see "Exploring More (or Less) of Your Site" in Chapter 3, "Creating and Customizing WebMaps," for details). However, if you generate site reports for a map created with limited exploration, you'll get reports only for the initial pages and levels you specified in the Explore dialog box. Should you then decide to explore the map further, you'll need to regenerate site reports (because further exploration will not modify the original site reports).

To generate (or regenerate) reports for a map you have already created: choose Tools|Generate Site Reports or click the Generate Site Reports button on the Main toolbar. Then follow steps 5, 6 and 7 in the previous procedure.

You can also regenerate Content Analyzer's standard site reports from the Remap Site dialog box (by selecting the Generate Site Reports checkbox in the Reporting Options area of the dialog box). This method produces the standard reports plus the Comparison Summary Report. For more information, see "Keeping Maps Current" in Chapter 8, "Site Management Tips & Techniques."

Managing Your Site with Content Analyzer Site Reports

Content Analyzer places the site information it has gathered into a series of site reports. Each report focuses on a particular type of site management issue, such as reporting broken links, summarizing incoming links, or calculating the number of links on a particular page. Content Analyzer also provides a linked site index so you can quickly access the report information you need. There's also a version of this index that's suitable for publishing on your Web site. (For more information, see "Creating an HTML Index for Your Site" in Chapter 8, "Site Management Tips & Techniques.")

By using the reports, you can easily monitor your content modifications, verify links, check the status of your site's resources, and handle other Webmaster tasks as productively as possible. What's more, the reports are hyperlinked to the site resources; once you've found a particular page or resource you want to see, just click it to view it in your browser.

Content Analyzer site reports, covering every aspect of a site, include: site statistics (number of pages, offsite/onsite links, media types, and so on); media reports (showing modification date, load size, and so on); link analysis reports; duplicate reports (showing identical objects on the same site); and many more. The variety and detail of Content Analyzer reports help you ensure that your site provides timely, accurate, and relevant information to visitors.

Available Site Reports

The following table lists and briefly describes each of the Content Analyzer HTML-formatted site reports. In the table, indented report names indicate reports that are reached from the "main level" report above them. For example, the Link Report and Broken Link Report are reachable only from the Explored Onsite Page Report. Note that the HTML file names of the reports generated for a site begin with a portion of the site name. For example, for the www.microsoft.com site, the Site Summary Report name is microsoft_summary.html 

For details about a particular report, just click the Help link at the top of the report page.

Report Name

HTML file name

Description

Site Summary Report

_summary.html

Provides an overview of the mapped site with hyperlinks to additional, more detailed reports.

Explored Onsite Page Report ("Pages")

_pages.html

Provides a page status summary and details about the pages in the site.

Link Report

_outlinks.html

Provides details about the links on individual pages.

Broken Link Report

_bypage.html

Lists pages with broken links as bold hyperlinks.

Hierarchy Report

_hierarchy.html

Shows the mapped site's basic structure in a tree-like outline form.

Images Report

_image.html

Lists and provides details about the images on the site.

Media Report

_media.html

Lists and provides details about the media (Java, video, and so on) on the site.

Gateway Report

_gateway.html

Lists and provides details about the gateways on the site.

Error Report

_broken.html

Shows all the links to unavailable objects on the site; groups errors of the same type by object.

Internet Services Report

_internet.html

Lists and provides details about the Internet services (FTP, Gopher, and so on) on the site.

Duplicates Report

_duplicates.html

Lists objects that have exact duplicates (identical names and sizes) on the site.

Offsite Links Report

_offsite.html

Shows the offsite resources in the site.

InLinks Report

_inlinks.html

Summarizes the number of links that point into a selected object from another object in the mapped site.

InLinks to Pages Report

_inpage.html

Provides details about the InLinks that point to individual pages on the site.

InLinks to Images Report

_inimage.html

Provides details about the InLinks that point to individual images on the site.

InLinks to Internet Services Report

_ininternet.html

Provides details about the InLinks that point to individual Internet services on the site.

InLinks to Media Report

_inmedia.html

Provides details about the InLinks that point to individual media on the site.

InLinks to Gateways Report

_ingateway.html

Provides details about the InLinks that point to individual gateways on the site.

Unexplored Objects Report

_unexplored.html

Lists objects in the map that Content Analyzer discovered but did not explore.

Page Index

_toc.html

A complete site index of pages, hyperlinked and sorted alphabetically by title.

Publishable Page Index

_pubtoc.html

A site index suitable for publishing on your Web site.

Comparison Summary Report

_update.html

Provides a summary comparison between two WebMaps of a site (when you select the Generate Site Reports checkbox in the Remap Site dialog box); also provides details about what's new, what's changed, and what's no longer referenced.

What's New Report

_whatsnew.html#
New

Lists additions to the site.

What's Changed Report

_whatsnew.html#
Changed

Lists what's changed on the site.

Unreferenced Objects Report

_obsolete.html

Lists the orphaned objects (pages, media, or other resources) no longer used on the site.

Note If the generated site reports don't meet your specific information needs, you can create your own reports by customizing your search criteria, rearranging and sorting the information in the Search Results window, and then exporting your search results to an HTML file that you can view in and print from your browser. For further information, see Chapter 6, Searching Maps and Creating Custom Reports, and Chapter 8, "Site Management Tips & Techniques."