Images crawling
Image viewer
(Unique innovative feature!) Images Inspector
Unsafe _blank links detection
Plenty of improvements, and fixes
Conclusions, and what's next
A few days ago we published Visual SEO Studio 1.9.8 - code-named "Teniers". An important milestone, it brings you a brand new and unique feature: Images Inspector.
Images crawling was something our users really missed; we decided to tackle the issue and make the best solution on the market!
Images crawling
Visual SEO Studio by default now during the crawl session also downloads images saving a record locally for each of them.
The new crawl options for images
During the crawl process downloaded images are quickly inspected to get their size in KB and pixel dimensions. If the "Save images" option is also selected, their content is stored as well to permit visualizing the images.
The second option is not selected by default because for large sites it could increase disk space consumption. We recommend selecting it to enjoy a better auditing experience when specifically making an images audit.
Image viewer
Having stored the images content, why not visualizing them?
After some internal discussion we decided the proper place to display them was - guess - the "Content" pane at the right. It already was used to display text, XML and HTML content, so we equipped it to display graphical content as well.
'Content' pane displaying an image item
Of course no image can be displayed when the "Save images" was not selected, but image size and dimensions can still be shown.
Images Inspector
The most prominent feature of "Teniers" is Images Inspector, a unique new tool to analyze all IMG tags of a web site.
Images Inspector summary page (click to enlarge)
With Images Inspector looking for most common images SEO issues just takes a couple of clicks, saving you tens of hours of manual inspection.
IMG tags list, filtering options
With filtering options, breakdown graphs, grouping trees, images preview, API integration and more, Images Inspector is a powerful tool that will change the way website image auditing is done.
Image Search optimization is too often neglected; now you have the right tool to make it shine.
Images Inspector main table, several columns are hidden (click to enlarge)
For a more complete understanding of the new feature, see the Images Inspector page.
Unsafe _blank links detection
Links Inspector main table has a new filtering option to locate "unsafe x-site destinations", i.e. links with target="_blank" and missing the values 'noopener' or 'noreferrer' in the rel attribute.
To understand why this feature is important - both in terms of security and rendering performances - please read what Google Lighthouse documentation page says.
The new addition provides you a unique tool to locate unsafe _blank links site wide.
A new (hidden) column "rel" has been added to help cross check them with ease.
Plenty of improvements, and fixes
There are nearly 60 Usability and User Experience improvements in this release (roughly half of them only concerning the Mac version, the other half affecting both Mac and Windows versions); about 60 bug fixes (three quarters of them concerning the Mac version only); performance improvements, and new features - of which Images Inspector shines as a unique innovative tool you cannot find elsewhere.
That is to say we take great care to give you an always up-to-date and better product.
For a full list of the changes, please consult the Release Notes.
Conclusions, and what's next
The new features will be extended with what couldn't make it with 1.9.8
The Mac version is going to be finalized and step out of the beta phase very soon, we are looking forward for that day with great enthusiasm. We received precious feedback from the beta tester, thank you all!
After the release of the final macOs version, we'll procede at full steam with new features, so stay tuned.
Now, how about launching "Teniers" and performing those website image audits your clients are waiting for?
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