How do I trigger a crawl?

Submitted by on Sat, 08/29/2015 - 21:16

I've created new databases, set the options and added seed sites. I click the "ready to crawl" box. And then nothing happens. I discovered I'm not supposed to use Chrome, so I did the same things using Firefox. Nothing. "Rows" always shows "0."

I'm at the point where I need to ask a potentially embarrassing question because it's probably something I'm doing wrong: Does the free version even work?

I was excited about trying this, but it's very unintuitive. It uses a web interface that I've not encountered except for maybe some old Java apps. Regrettably, I was busy and didn't try what I now know is a v2.0 interface during the two-week trial. Is that interface more modern?

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VOSON System Users
  • anon

    I found a 2012 (!) post asking the same question. The answer:

    Regarding question 2, you need to remember to press the "Add" button on the left hand side, or else the seed URLs will not be added to the database. After pressing the Add button, you should see the added seed sites listed below the line "Seed sites you have added that are pending decision from the administrator"

    So it was something I was (not) doing, but I'm not embarrassed because the layout is very difficult to understand. Despite the above answer, in my browser I see, on the right side of the seeds entry box, the word "Comment" and then a small text-entry box and then a button labeled "Add."

    I understood that as a way to make an optional comment by clicking "Add" to add the comment. The comment field should be elsewhere, and it should say something like "Add seed URLs" and then a "Submit" button.

    In any case, I see that my small test project ate up about 40 of my 50 credits, so even though I've figured out how to crawl, it doesn't appear to be very practical for me. Are there other public alternatives on the net, or do most researchers use in-house crawling systems?

    Aug 29, 2015
  • anon

    Hi,

    Thanks for your interest in VOSON and I'm glad to see that you successfully ran a crawl.  

    I had a look at your account, and the crawl you ran (5 seed sites, finding both inbound and outbound links) only used up 3.6 VOSON accounting units (VAU) of your 50 VAU credit (available with the free tier).

    However, I would say that in order to do substantial crawls (i.e. a reasonable number of seed sites, and crawling to reasonable depth) then you probably do need one of the paid accounts (either Professional or Premium).

    Regarding your comments on the Classic user interface (available with the free tier) - there is no doubt that the VOSON 2.0 interface (available with Professional and Premium tier) is nicer to work with, but the workflow is actually quite similar to that of the Classic interface.  We are working on an overhaul of the interface that will make things more intutive, but for the time being I recommend that you can look at the documentation (including screencasts) available on the software page.  Also note that we have a plugin to NodeXL (Excel template for social network analysis) - VOSON+NodeXL (see the software page).

    Finally, we are happy to provide you with another free trial of VOSON Premium so you can check out the VOSON 2.0 user interface.

    Rob

    Aug 29, 2015