Tools for site analysis

BrianM · Mar 26th, 2008, 14:00

I just 'inherited' a website for a nonprofit that has had numerous people working on it over the years. There are literally dozens of folders and hundreds (or more!) of files of various types floating around various directories.

Job one was to get the pages and links working. That's done. Job two is to map out the site and figure out what is in use and what can be safely deleted or archived. I want to do this prior to switching hosts, which needs to be done fairly soon.

Are there any tools out there that can take a top-level file (index.html) and then traverse the links recursively through all the pages and give a report of what pages, scripts, images, etc. are in use?

I have the full Adobe suite, and if Dreamweaver can do this, I'm missing something.

Thanks!

welshstew · Mar 26th, 2008, 14:07

in dreamweaver run link checker against orphaned files, this should work as long as you are using relative paths (i.e. ../../images/blah.jpg) rather than root relative paths (/images/blah.jpg)

BrianM · Mar 26th, 2008, 14:39

That was useful, thanks. I'm still finding (and figuring out how to use) all the functionality in Dreamweaver. I think that will provide a good starting point for site migration. Unfortunately, I have a lot of work to do:

Files: 479 Total, 306 HTML, 282 Orphaned
Files 3893 All links, 2490 OK, 557 Broken, 846 External

It would have been MORE useful to get a list of the non-orphaned files!

welshstew · Mar 26th, 2008, 14:50

just make sure you take a back up of your site before you start deleting anything, then once you have done your "clean" you will need to go through all pages and ensure that all images / assets/ links are working / visable.

made this mistake once, but luckily we use a configuration management system and could rollback easily

BrianM · Mar 26th, 2008, 15:18

I have all the menus and links working in the 'live site', although most of it was done quick-and-dirty. I've also made 2 copies on my local disk, one mirroring the active site, and one that I am actively editing.

Yeah, I've also been down that road you mentioned, although not with web development. In that case it was a total nightmare - our data center never checked backup tapes, and naturally they were corrupt. And we're talking about a Fortune 100 company.... who will remain nameless.

welshstew · Mar 26th, 2008, 16:30

Jack Franklin · Mar 26th, 2008, 16:34

Files: 479 Total, 306 HTML, 282 Orphaned
Files 3893 All links, 2490 OK, 557 Broken, 846 External

Ouch. Have fun

BrianM · Mar 27th, 2008, 15:07

When I run site checker in Dreamweaver (CS2) the list of orphaned files doesn't update after I do and delete them. I have caching turned off, but it doesn't seem to have any effect. Even if I delete the old list and rerun the report, the list does not change to reflect the updates. Any ideas?