Site Lens is Search Atlas' advanced visualization layer, designed to transform raw crawl data into clear, actionable visual intelligence. Instead of scanning tables of URLs, Site Lens lets you see your site's structure, crawl behavior, internal linking, and topical coverage across multiple visual dimensions.
This guide explains every Site Lens visualization, how it works, where it lives in the product, and what insights to look for.
📍 How to Access Site Lens
Site Lens lives inside OTTO SEO → Site Audit → Site Lens: from OTTO SEO, open Site Audit, then open Site Lens for your project.
Once loaded, you'll see the project name, total pages crawled, six visualization tabs (2D Node Cluster, 3D Crawl Diagram, Tree Diagram, Crawl Tree, Link Flow Diagram, LDA Topic Analysis), and global filters and export options.
🧠 What All Site Lens Views Have in Common
- Each node represents a page
- Connections represent internal links
- Node size reflects the selected metric (traffic, impressions, keywords, etc.)
- Node color reflects depth or health
- Filters allow you to isolate sections, hide pages, or emphasize specific page types
These views are different ways of looking at the same crawl data, each optimized for a different kind of insight.
🧭 Global Controls
Left control panel: Go to URL (jump to and highlight a specific page), Fix nodes on drag (lock node position), Show labels (toggle URL labels), Size by (choose the metric that controls node size — Depth, Traffic, Impressions, Keywords, etc.), Color by (choose color metric — Depth, Page Health Score), Emphasis (highlight hubs, traffic leaders, paid pages), Max Depth (limit crawl depth shown), Link Length (spacing between nodes), and Reset (restore default view).
Top controls: Filter Pages (isolate specific sections), Show Prunable (highlight low-value pages), Hide Orphans (hide disconnected pages), Export PNG (download the visualization), and Light / Dark Mode.
🟢 2D Node Cluster
A force-directed graph showing your site's pages as interconnected nodes in a two-dimensional space. Each node is one page, lines are internal links, and nodes naturally group into clusters based on linking relationships. The homepage typically appears near the center.
How to read it: node size reflects the selected metric; node color reflects crawl depth from the homepage (depth 0 = homepage, depth 1 = first-level pages); blue rings mark hub or emphasized pages; red rings mark pages flagged as prunable; dense clusters indicate strong topical or structural grouping; isolated nodes indicate orphan or weakly linked pages.
What it helps you detect: pages that are hard for search engines to discover, important content with insufficient internal links, over-isolated sections, pages that add little SEO value, and hubs that aren't distributing authority effectively.
Recommended actions: add internal links to isolated or deep pages, strengthen hub pages and link them to priority URLs, consolidate or prune low-value pages, rebalance internal linking across clusters, and align architecture with content strategy.
🟣 3D Crawl Diagram
An immersive, three-dimensional view of your site structure, with pages represented as spheres in 3D space, internal links connecting pages, and depth visualized spatially. The homepage typically sits near the center.
How to read it: vertical spread shows hierarchy depth; dense regions are strongly linked sections; floating nodes are weakly linked pages; larger spheres reflect higher metric values.
What it helps you detect: excessively deep site architecture, pages buried too far from the homepage, structural bottlenecks, and hidden clusters not obvious in 2D views.
Recommended actions: flatten deep sections where possible, add shortcut links to buried pages, strengthen internal linking to floating nodes, and validate architecture changes visually.
🌳 Tree Diagram
A hierarchical view based on URL structure, showing parent-child relationships derived from URL paths, sections and subsections of your site, and page counts per section.
How to read it: top nodes are higher-level pages; deeper branches are nested URLs; wide branches are large sections; collapsible nodes are expandable subsections.
What it helps you detect: pages buried too deep in the URL structure, overcrowded sections, unbalanced or confusing hierarchies, and structural inconsistencies.
Recommended actions: simplify deep URL paths, reorganize oversized sections, improve navigation and breadcrumbs, and align URL structure with content intent.
🌲 Crawl Tree
A visualization of the actual crawl path taken by search engines: real crawl discovery order, parent-child crawl relationships, crawl depth from the homepage, and pages flagged as prunable.
How to read it: left-to-right flow shows crawl progression; deeper levels mean more clicks required; highlighted nodes indicate low-value pages.
What it helps you detect: important pages discovered too late, crawl inefficiencies, pages requiring too many clicks, and weak internal link signals.
Recommended actions: reduce crawl depth for priority pages, add internal links earlier in the crawl path, remove unnecessary crawl paths, and improve crawl efficiency.
🔗 Link Flow Diagram
A visual map of how internal link equity flows between sections: site sections arranged in a circular layout, ribbons representing internal links, and ribbon thickness indicating link volume.
How to read it: thick ribbons show strong link flow; thin or missing ribbons show weak connections; balanced sections indicate healthy architecture.
What it helps you detect: siloed content, uneven authority distribution, and missed cross-linking opportunities.
Recommended actions: add links between related sections, strengthen authority flow to priority areas, and balance internal linking strategy.
🧩 LDA Topic Analysis
A semantic view of what your content is actually about: topics represented as bubbles, topic size reflecting prevalence, keywords associated with each topic, and pages probabilistically mapped to topics.
How to read it: large bubbles are dominant topics; overlapping bubbles are related themes; distant bubbles are distinct topics.
What it helps you detect: overlapping or redundant content, missing topical coverage, and weak topical authority areas.
Recommended actions: fill content gaps, consolidate overlapping articles, strengthen internal linking within topics, and align content with search intent.
🎯 Why Site Lens Matters
Site Lens turns SEO from analysis into visual understanding. By combining crawl depth, internal links, hierarchy, link equity, and topical relevance, Site Lens gives you a complete mental model of your website — exactly as search engines experience it.
Site Lens is not one visualization — it's six complementary lenses on the same truth. Your site's structure determines how value flows, how pages rank, and how content is discovered. Use Site Lens to find what's hidden, fix what's broken, strengthen what matters, and build with intention.
If you need further assistance, open the chat widget in the bottom-right corner of the platform and type human teammate to be connected with a member of our team.