Segments: how to work with them

1. What is a segment in Netpeak Spider?

2. How to segment results?

3. Export of segments.

4. Use cases.

4.1. Exclusion of pages with query string parameters from reports (custom conditions).

4.2. Segmentation of a project by pages with errors (‘Issues‘ tab).

4.3. Segmentation of a project by compliant pages (‘Overview‘ tab).

4.4. Segmentation of a project by depth (‘Site structure‘ tab).

4.5. Segmentation of a project by scraping condition (‘Scraping‘ tab).

1. What is a segment in Netpeak Spider?

Segments are a feature that allows you to change the set of the displayed data by limiting it to a certain filter. It helps to smoothen the work with large sites, for example, if necessary to analyze the site by a range of specific data.

The applied segments affect all reports in the program, including reports, result tables, the internal database, as well as  ‘Dashboard‘ panel, ‘Issues‘, ‘Overview‘, ‘Site structure‘, ‘Scraping‘ tabs, etc.. Segmentation affects the work of some tools built in the program: ‘Internal PageRank calculation’ and ‘Sitemap generator’ → only your selected segmention data will participate in calculations.

2. How to segment results

There are two ways to work with segments:

1. Use as a segment in the pre-filtered results. This method can be faster and more convenient if default filters or filters by value are suitable for your tasks.

To do this, click on the ‘Use as a segment‘ button on the filtered results tab.

2. Set segment, for example, to identify the sections with the most severe issues. To do this, use the ‘Set segment... ‘ button on the control panel (or use the Ctrl+Shift+F hotkey combination) and set the necessary conditions in the opened window.

Please note: after setting up a segment, the name of the segment and its size relative to the all crawled pages will be displayed on the button that performs the function of segment settings. Click on this button to open the settings window again.

To cancel the segmentation, press the ‘Reset‘ button.

3. Export of segments

The use of segmention affects the entire program, so the exported data in the reports will relate only to the selected segment. Exception is the ‘Pending URLs‘ report, since the segment is not applied during crawling.

4. Use cases

4.1. Exclusion of pages with query string parameters from reports (custom conditions)

If you need to exclude some part of the crawled pages, for example, pages which contain query string parameters, you can set a custom filter:

1. Press ‘Set segment... ‘ on the control panel. 

2. Set the condition of a segment: to exclude pages with query string parameters, set the condition which excludes URLs with ‘?‘.

3. Press ‘OK.’

You can also set a similar filter for the applied segment on the ‘Filtered results’ tab to change its view.

4.2. Segmentation of a project by pages with errors (‘Issues‘ tab)

To get all data and reports on pages with errors only:

1. Open the ‘Issues‘ tab in the sidebar.
2. Filter the issues by clicking on ‘Error‘ so that the table of filtered results shows the corresponding data. The results will appear in the filtered results tab.
3. Click on the button ‘Use as segment‘ in the upper right corner.

Now all reports and statistics will be displayed taking into account the applied segment.

4.3. Segmentation of a project by compliant pages (‘Overview‘ tab)

Similar to the previous example, you can use a segment to other default filters. For example, to see the statistics for the complaint pages of the site:

1. Open the ‘Overview‘ tab in a sidebar.
2. Filter the URL by clicking on page status ‘Compliant‘.
3. On the ‘Filtered results‘ tab apply the filter as a segment.

4.4. Segmentation of a project by depth (‘Site structure‘ tab)

The ‘Site structure‘ tab displays the crawled sections (folders) and categories. Here you can select a segment in two clicks:

• necessary language version
• needed section of the website
• specific subdomain or other website part

To do this:

1. Click on the desired item of the site structure.
2. Apply the filtered results as a segment.

4.5. Segmentation of a project by scraping condition (‘Scraping‘ tab)

You can also segment the results by scraping condition. To do so:

1. Set the necessary condition in the ‘Scraping‘ tab of the settings and start crawling.

2. After completing the crawling, select the desired condition in the ‘Scraping‘ tab in a sidebar.

3. Apply the filtered results as a segment.