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Show HN: Sitebulb, a website crawler and auditor for SEOs

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Re: Show HN: Sitebulb, a website crawler and auditor for SEOs

#21

Post by throwaway2016a »

hathawayp wrote: post #18
throwaway2016a wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> On cloud software that's simply not possible, due to the way that everything is scheduled. As someone who works in cloud software this makes me cringe a little. I have no doubt this is how existing cloud SEO crawlers work but with elastic scaling, web sockets, and serverless there is no reason why this has to be true. It is not a limitation of cloud software. It is a sign of devs and/or product owners deciding maki…

Sorry, maybe I misread, but I kind of read the comment as 'what separates this from other cloud products on the market?' So I wasn't trying to argue what is and isn't possible with cloud architecture, simply what is and isn't possible with (our) cloud-based competitors. The process is along the lines of: 'Click Start', get taken to a screen which says 'Initializing' or similar, then maybe 2-3 minutes later you'll see…

> Sitebulb, and desktop crawlers in general, has a much quicker feedback loop.

I wasn't denying that. I'm sure it does. I am confident this is way better than most (if not all) current cloud solutions.

I just think it is unfortunate because there is no technical limitation of the cloud that prevents it from being instant on the cloud as well.

The cloud can't handle spikes well (1,000 customers all unexpectedly try to scan at once) but if the load is predictable, linear, or easily done in parallel which I suspect it is for this use case than it is perfectly doable with no delay on the cloud.

Re: Show HN: Sitebulb, a website crawler and auditor for SEOs

#22

Post by hathawayp »

throwaway2016a wrote: post #20
hathawayp wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting comment regarding the App Store. To be honest I'm really surprised no one has ever said this to us before. We have another product - ( http://urlprofiler.com/ ) - for Windows and Mac that we've been selling for 3 years and no one has ever given us this feedback. We're not wedded to a price structure, although we're rolling with monthly for now. I'm pretty sure through weight of demand that we'll need to a…

The app store has a few benefits. The biggest one, for paid software is that if I format my computer or move to a new computer my license come over with my Apple account. I don't need to worry about remembering an account and license keys for each each. I can't count how many apps I've paid for but I don't have installed right now because I lost a hard drive and my license keys with it. Though I'm guessing with month…

Thanks for the feedback, good to know.

Yeah we use a username/password so there's no issue with losing a license key.

Re: Show HN: Sitebulb, a website crawler and auditor for SEOs

#23

Post by will_critchlow »

hathawayp wrote: post #10
EvanKRob wrote: post #8

Ditto on the sitebulb love. It's a well-done product and a welcome challenger to the status-quo of SEO software out there. I will say the cost gives me hesitation but you've put a lot of work into it so I understand the justification. For the visualization, does the crawl map limit the connections? I was expecting to see more of a web with pages linked from the entire site. Can you tell us more about that? Thanks

Price is always a difficult one trying to get the cost/value balance right. We did some pricing sensitivity testing before launch so I'm hopeful we've not got it too wrong. Regarding Crawl Maps, yeah it does have some limitations on, which I've written about here - https://sitebulb.com/resources/guides/crawl-maps-faqs/ Although from your comment I think you might be thinking it is a link map, rather than a crawl map.…

"Almost everything looks like a graph. Almost nothing should be drawn as one."

It's really hard to make sense of full link graph visualisations. I'm talking about this in an upcoming conference presentation. We should share notes :)

Re: Show HN: Sitebulb, a website crawler and auditor for SEOs

#24

Post by hathawayp »

will_critchlow wrote: post #23
hathawayp wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Price is always a difficult one trying to get the cost/value balance right. We did some pricing sensitivity testing before launch so I'm hopeful we've not got it too wrong. Regarding Crawl Maps, yeah it does have some limitations on, which I've written about here - https://sitebulb.com/resources/guides/crawl-maps-faqs/ Although from your comment I think you might be thinking it is a link map, rather than a crawl map.…

"Almost everything looks like a graph. Almost nothing should be drawn as one." It's really hard to make sense of full link graph visualisations. I'm talking about this in an upcoming conference presentation. We should share notes :)

Absolutely. In development we tried different ways to make the Crawl Map also represent link data, and they were all just unintelligible. Even the Crawl Maps on big sites are hard to get your head around, and that's with Sitebulb sampling quite heavily.

I'd love for us to come up with some sort of solution for it, I just don't know how we'd do it!

SL presentation I assume?

Re: Show HN: Sitebulb, a website crawler and auditor for SEOs

#26

Post by will_critchlow »

will_critchlow wrote: post #23
hathawayp wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Price is always a difficult one trying to get the cost/value balance right. We did some pricing sensitivity testing before launch so I'm hopeful we've not got it too wrong. Regarding Crawl Maps, yeah it does have some limitations on, which I've written about here - https://sitebulb.com/resources/guides/crawl-maps-faqs/ Although from your comment I think you might be thinking it is a link map, rather than a crawl map.…

"Almost everything looks like a graph. Almost nothing should be drawn as one." It's really hard to make sense of full link graph visualisations. I'm talking about this in an upcoming conference presentation. We should share notes :)

Oh - I meant to say - that quote is from this book: http://shop.oreilly.com/product/9780596514556.do

Re: Show HN: Sitebulb, a website crawler and auditor for SEOs

#27

Post by will_critchlow »

hathawayp wrote: post #24
will_critchlow wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Almost everything looks like a graph. Almost nothing should be drawn as one." It's really hard to make sense of full link graph visualisations. I'm talking about this in an upcoming conference presentation. We should share notes :)

Absolutely. In development we tried different ways to make the Crawl Map also represent link data, and they were all just unintelligible. Even the Crawl Maps on big sites are hard to get your head around, and that's with Sitebulb sampling quite heavily. I'd love for us to come up with some sort of solution for it, I just don't know how we'd do it! SL presentation I assume?

Yep.

Will be sharing and writing about it too - still a bit of a work-in-progress. Hopefully it all comes together nicely!

I'm leaning towards comparisons between tables of data, metrics etc rather than visualisations for much of this.

Re: Show HN: Sitebulb, a website crawler and auditor for SEOs

#29

Post by hathawayp »

danielsamuels wrote: post #25

How does this compare to something like Scrutiny, which seems to do a similar thing?

It has a lot more comprehensive reporting and data visualization than the likes of Scrutiny. I have no idea of the scale limitations of Scrutiny, but I'd be very surprised if it can handle ~500,000 URLs.

Also Sitebulb is for both Windows and Mac.

Re: Show HN: Sitebulb, a website crawler and auditor for SEOs

#30

Post by sametmax »

seibelj wrote: post #19
throwaway2016a wrote: post #9

This looks really good. My only comment I have is that if I am purchasing a piece of desktop software I expect there to be at least the option of an annual license. Monthly feels more like a service than a product and I think of desktop software as a product. But I realize Desktop software pricing is evolving so this may just be old school thinking on my part. Also, if I'm a Mac user (I am) I expect to be able to buy…

I am personally fine with a monthly fee for desktop software. If I'm paying for software, it's up to the person who sells the software to decide how I should pay, and for me to decide if it's worth it.

How many software licences do you pay a month ? Because they add up, very, very quickly.
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