We would like to thank all of our users for their unwavering support of DYNO Mapper since our beta launch. The growth from MVP to Enterprise SaaS has been an exciting journey for the DYNO Mapper team, and we could not have done it without all of the user input that we have received. We value all of the constructive feedback, and we hope it keeps coming! Today, we are ecstatic to announce DYNO Mapper v2.0 and highlight 10 of the most important innovations in visual site mapping.

1. New Style! Thumbnail Sitemaps

Performing a visual site audit can be challenging, but with the new thumbnail style, you can automatically generate stunning visual sitemaps of any public site or web-app with ease. Screenshots of every page are used in the hierarchy display of a website so that users can quickly identify pages of an entire website that need to be removed or updated. It is a fast and easy process when performing in-depth site audits for UI, UX, SEO, and marketing research. Just enter the URL you wish to audit and get a thumbnail-based site flow of your entire site. Individual thumbnails have refresh capability on demand.

2. Crawling part of a website

There are several reasons why someone would want to create a sitemap for a section of a website. Among them are the following:

1. Your site is too large, so you need to break it into manageable parts
2. Your site is so large that you don't want to wait hours for the desired data
3. Creating multiple sitemaps of the same site

To make this easier we have created two needed features and enhanced an already existing function.

Skip Links - allows you to skip specific links that you'd like omitted during a website crawl. You can use the Matching Rule pop-up to enter a part of URL and the matching type—Match Any, Match Beginning, Match End, March Whole, and RegEx. Users also have the option of using the Text Editor to add RegEx statements followed by a new line.

Exclude / Include - this is an old feature that is improved upon to include the Matching Rule pop-up. Now it can select sitemap folders or items from previously saved sitemaps. To utilize it to its full advantage, all you need to do is run a general crawl, then create a new sitemap using the folder hierarchy of a previous crawl.

Start URL as root - this is used to identify the root URL of a sitemap for the hierarchy display. It must be selected when crawling a directory of a section of a page so that the site-flow follows the correct root page.

3. Internal Linking - Occurrences

Knowing where to find every occurrence of a link on a website is critical when resolving any internal linking issues. Not only can you view occurrences in the Content Inventory, but now you can also highlight your internal linking visually in sitemaps and also within the Content Audit feature.

4. Hosted XML Sitemaps for SEO

If you have ever had to do SEO for a custom application or CMS systems, XML file management can be tedious and annoying. SEO experts often have to manage many different sitemaps for many different clients. These sitemaps would have had to be hosted exclusively on each site’s server, or with their web host. SEO experts have to log in to each server any time they need to work on a sitemap. It’s time-consuming to have to do so, especially when you need to work on several sites in a short space of time.

Recognizing the need for a better system for custom applications or CMS systems, DYNO Mapper has introduced their Hosted XML Sitemaps for SEO feature. This exciting new function allows SEO experts to host all their clients’ sitemaps in one space—with DYNO Mapper.

5. Crawl Private Web Pages With Ease

There are many reasons you as a website owner, manager, or developer may need to password-protect web pages:

• Development: Whether you’re still building your site or conducting a redesign, password protecting the pages you’re working on prevents the public from seeing the unfinished project until you’re ready.

• Private Content: There is a range of reasons for privatizing some of the information posted on your website. The most common is to encourage readers to subscribe, or because you’re hosting an online course.

• Security: You may have a staff-only section on your site, which requires employees to log in to conduct their work. Also known as an interweb, these sections streamline the working process, especially for new employees.

Whatever your reasons for creating private web pages, you’ll still need to include them in your sitemap and use a website crawler to check for any issues, etc.

DYNO Mapper is now capable of basic authentication, CMS Authentication Integration (Wordpress, Joomla, Drupal, Expression Engine), and Custom Forms Authentication which can authenticate with the majority of login forms.

DYNO Mapper introduced CMS Authentication Integration in 2017. This exciting new feature allows DYNO Mapper users to set up CMS authentication to crawl private web pages with ease.

6. Keyword Ranking by Location, Group, and Devices

Keyword tracking is a fundamental aspect of SEO that should never be ignored by site owners and managers. Your keyword ranking data gives you invaluable insight on how your content performs on search engine results pages. Without this insight, it would be difficult to determine how visible your site or pages are when users search for the keywords you’re targeting.

DYNO Mapper’s keyword tracking can be used to discover which keywords you’re targeting based on your metadata as well as how well each page is performing for those keywords. 

DYNO Mapper will now track by location, device, and allows users to group keywords for easy display.

Location-based keyword tracking gives you invaluable information on how well your site is performing in any geographical area. This can help you to develop targeted specials, schedule posts according to time zone, or even create content that would appeal to a location specifically. On the flip side, you can also use this information to develop strategies for raising your ranking in areas where your site is lagging behind your competitors.

Group-based keyword tracking lets users group similar keywords for quick filtering and viewing of keyword performance by group. All the information you need to see which keywords are working to meet your advertising goals in one place.

Device-based keyword tracking is increasingly important. In previous years, it was a given that almost all internet users were accessing information online via a desktop or laptop PC. For the past few years, however, mobile use has become increasingly popular. Mobile optimization has similarly become a key topic in SEO and site development. One previously under-appreciated aspect of mobile optimization has been the difference in how sites rank on mobile devices compared to desktops and laptops. Knowing how well you rank for both can give you actionable insight on whether or not your site’s mobile optimization needs improvement.

7. Content Planning: Adding Videos, Files, Images, Text, and Links

DYNO Mapper’s content planning features allow users to gather content for display in sitemaps and manage workflows. This is especially important when designing or redesigning a website.

You can create content blocks directly on your sitemap, allowing you and your team to visualize your information architecture as you build it. Files can be easily exported to be imported into your CMS when ready, or as a PDF or CSV for internal records.

There is a suite of project management functions included that allows users to identify, develop, and execute content strategies from start to finish. Content assignments can be assigned to team members and track their progress tracked by the due date or milestone using the DYNO Mapper Content Calendar.

8. Unlimited Users and User Permissions (All Features)

All too often, when a service provider develops their pricing structure, some features are withheld from the cheaper packages to encourage users to pay for the more premium options. While there’s nothing wrong with doing so, DYNO Mapper understands that not all of our users have the same capacity needs—even if they need all the features.

That’s why DYNO Mapper’s package sizes are ranked in capacity instead. For example, the Regular package allows for 10 projects, Freelancer for 25, and our Most Popular premium package has a 50-project capacity.

Each package benefits from all of our features. Just as importantly, all three packages allow for unlimited users. We’ve found that this is particularly important for smaller clients who still have large teams.

Recently, DYNO Mapper also gave users the ability to control each user’s permissions individually. Instead of having to create generic user ranks, you can now tweak each team member’s permissions according to their function and role. In large collaborative teams, this is particularly valuable.

Agencies that use DYNO Mapper are now also able to keep each project entirely separate to others, so that client access is restricted and team members are only able to access the projects relevant to their role in the agency.

9. Include and Display Redirects, Bad Links, and PDFs in SiteMaps

A good sitemap shows you how your information hierarchy is working for you. But a great sitemap also shows you what doesn’t work, such as bad links. DYNO Mapper’s sitemap generator includes any broken links that you have so that you can easily identify them and rectify the issue.

One way of solving the problem is to create a redirect for broken links so that instead of giving an error, they redirect you to another working page that caters to the same need. DYNO Mapper allows you to keep track of your redirects by displaying them on your sitemap as well.

Finally, PDF files have caused many a headache for site owners, managers, and SEO experts in the past. But with DYNO Mapper, you can identify any and all PDFs on your site and display them in your visual sitemap.

10. Custom Category, Workflow, and Tags

Once you’ve created a sitemap or content inventory, you can categorize your content with custom categories, assign a custom workflow status, or custom tags. Sitemap pages can be filtered by these same categories, workflows, and tags.

Author: Garenne BigbyWebsite: http://garennebigby.com

Founder of DYNO Mapper and Former Advisory Committee Representative at the W3C.