Managing Your Projects

A project is one website. The crawl, the visualization, the optimization runs and the reports all belong to a project, so creating one is the first thing you do after logging in and the only thing you must do before the rest of LinkMap opens up.

Once a project has been crawled, what do I do next is the fastest way to find out what to do with it.

Creating A Project

Open Projects and click "Create new project". The form asks for two things: a project name to identify it by, and the domain. Whether you include www matters, because the version that is saved is the version LinkMap crawls, and the check below settles which version that should be.

Domain Checks

When you save, LinkMap fetches the domain and compares what you typed against what the site says about itself: its canonical tag, any redirect it serves, and the URLs in its sitemap. If they disagree, it shows you the URL the site uses with a Use this URL instead link, and one click puts that version in the form. A trailing slash is normalized either way.

The check exists because the wrong version of a domain crawls badly. A site that redirects to https, or that declares its www form canonical, has to be entered the way it resolves, or the crawl follows redirects it should never have met and the site structure it draws is a copy of the wrong site.

Managing Multiple Projects

Each website or client gets its own project, and the projects page lists them all. If there is more than one user on the account, every project also has its own chat room.

Switching Between Projects

To switch between projects:

1. Use the projects dropdown in the top navigation bar
2. Select the project you want to work with
3. The interface will update to show data for the selected project

Project Sharing

Share a project's visualization with clients or team members through the "Project Sharing" tab in the visualization interface. The sharing options cover expiry, what the recipient sees, and revoking the link.

Project Settings

You can modify project settings at any time:

1. Click the "Edit" button next to your project
2. Update the desired settings
3. Save your changes

Each project also has an Enhanced crawling toggle on the projects page. It draws on update credits, so buy credits from the dashboard before turning it on.

Deleting Projects

To delete a project:

1. Click the "Delete" button next to the project
2. Confirm the deletion
3. Note: This action cannot be undone and will remove all project data, including visualizations and page data

When you manage several projects, a naming convention that carries the client name or website purpose and the environment, such as "ClientName-Production" or "ClientName-Development", keeps the list readable as it grows.

With your project configured, open the interactive visualization to see its structure and start on the architecture.