Websites as graphs

Sunday, August 27, 2006 » link webdesign

I just came across this Websites as graphs applet, which is pretty cool. You just feed it a URL and it generates a branching diagram based on the HTML code on that single page. At first I just liked the way the diagrams sort of erupt out of a single point, but it's actually sort of interesting to look these abstract representations and try to guess at what each cluster could be. (I wonder if all Eric Meyer sees when he's browsing the Web is these charts, like in The Matrix.)

There's also a whole collection of these graphs on flickr, and I even went ahead and uploaded my own chart1, annotated with what each cluster represents from the actual page. (You'll probably only appreciate that last part if you're either a) a crazy Web-head, or b) the Webmaster of metaly.org.)

Finally, I'm sure everyone in the CSS camp appreciates that table tags show up in red.

1 My first flickr photo! I'm really not getting a lot of use out of my account.