How to Visualize Your Website as an Interactive Link Graph
How to Visualize Your Website as an Interactive Link Graph
The Link Explorer in QueryBurst renders the internal link graph as an interactive force-directed visualization — showing hub-and-spoke patterns, clusters, bridges, and isolated nodes that are invisible in tabular data. Navigate hop-by-hop from any page, inspect page-level detail on click, and identify structural bottlenecks or disconnected sections affecting how crawlers and AI systems traverse the site.
How to Access Link Explorer in QueryBurst
- Open a site in QueryBurst.
- Click Link Analysis in the sidebar.
- Select the Link Explorer subtab.
Understanding the Interface
Graph View
The main visualisation is a force-directed graph where:
- Nodes represent pages
- Edges represent internal links
- Solid edges — Content-area links (editorial links within page body)
- Dashed edges — Structural links (navigation, footer, header)
- Colour coding — Nodes are coloured by depth from the homepage
The graph starts from a seed page (defaults to the homepage or the most-linked page).
Seed Selection
Click the search icon to change the starting page. Search by URL or title.
Node Detail Panel
Click any node to see its detail panel:
| Section | Description |
|---|---|
| Stats | Inbound link count, outbound count, content authority score, depth |
| Depth badges | Structural and content depth from the homepage |
| Alerts | Orphan or dead-end warnings if applicable |
Tabs
The detail panel has four tabs:
Outbound:
- Pages that the selected page links to
- Shows page title, link type, content authority bar, and degree distance from seed
Inbound:
- Pages that link to the selected page
- Same format as outbound
Content Path:
- Shortest path from the seed page using only content links
- Shows each hop with the connecting page
Structural Path:
- Shortest path from the seed using all link types
- Fetched from the backend for accuracy
Minimap
The force-directed graph provides a birds-eye view of the link structure. Navigate by clicking nodes directly in the graph.
Legend
The legend explains edge types (content vs structural) and node colour coding (depth levels).
Interpreting Results
Healthy Signs
- Dense, well-connected graph — Pages are reachable through multiple paths
- Short paths — Most pages are 2–3 hops from the homepage
- Mix of content and structural edges — Pages are linked both editorially and structurally
- High content authority on key pages — Important pages receive many editorial links
Warning Signs
- Isolated nodes — Pages with very few connections
- Long paths — Pages requiring 5+ hops to reach from the homepage
- Structural-only connections — Pages linked only via navigation with no editorial support
- Orphan/dead-end alerts — Structural problems flagged on individual pages
Tips
- Start from your homepage — See how the entire site radiates outward
- Check important pages — Navigate to key content and verify it's well-connected
- Compare content vs structural paths — Pages with very different path types may need better content linking
- Look for isolated clusters — Groups of pages not connected to the main structure
- Use the path tabs — Trace exactly how users (and crawlers) would navigate between two pages
Related Reports
- Link Overview — Summary dashboard
- Click Depth — Depth distribution with page drill-down
- Orphans — Pages missing internal links
- Graph Explorer — Similar walker for the knowledge graph (entities instead of pages)