Any chance of getting a plugin for ReviewPost (PhotoPost product)? :)

You can definitely confirm it is functioning just by looking at the files it creates. Whether it is "working" by getting your site better indexed by the search engines, that's open for some debate, but by and large it helps a great deal.

I am noticing that its effectiveness seems to have waned in the past few months. When I first installed this, Google would send dozens of searchbots to my site each day to crawl the latest additions to the sitemap. I'd have a top 5 hit on google for any specific text in a thread title within a day or two of the original posting on my site.

But lately, even though Google downloads the new sitemap at least once per day (can check that in the logs and also by logging in to your webmaster account at Google), by also looking at the Track Guests mod I can see that it only sends 1 or 2 searchbots to my site per day (other than the adsense bots), and the new pages aren't getting indexed nearly as quickly. In fact, Yahoo is now sending dozens (sometimes hundreds) of bots to my site based on their grabbing that same sitemap, and it also appears that more of my visitors are now coming to me via Yahoo search than Google. I still think this is a great tool, but I wish Google used the files with the same vigor that they used to.

My experience is the same. I use the full-price VBSEO package and a few months after installation I had 200,000 pages indexed on Google. Now, after they changed their system I dropped to only 60,000 or so pages listed. Page ranking dropped from 6/10 to 4/10 too.

I bought the 'full' VBSEO package but decided not to install it. My biggest worry was how to change back if I decided, for whatever reason, to remove it. I'm told it can be set up so that taking it out won't be a problem. Last year I grossed almost US$70K from my main site (which I consider small, but it's a good 'niche' technical web site) so the cost wasn't a factor at all. Most of the feedback I found when I perused many 'web master' forums researching was that for a mature site it isn't of much, if any, 'help'.

If I was setting up a new forum I'd use it, probably. But the bottom line is VBSEO isn't a 'magic bullet' any more than a site map is. Content, inbound non-reciprocal links, and length of time online are the major factors IMHO. Even page rank is of little significance these days. I also think Google now understands the url name issue and is placing less weight on the url name.

As to the number of pages indexed, I don't believe that's all that important. What is important is visitor statistics. As long as I see an increase in visitors most months I'm a happy camper.

EDIT ADD: As a disclaimer, I haven't installed this mod/hack. I did 'subscribe' to this thread to monitor it. Like VBSEO, I think site maps are vastly over rated. Content, inbound non-reciprocal links (but not from link farms or 'reciprocal', or related, agreements {such as 'post for post' or 'link for link' exchanges}), and length of time online rule!

brvheart,

please try to execute it via vbseo_sitemap/ interface ("Run sitemap generator" link).

StepOnFrog,

sitemap files are created in vbseo_sitemap/data/ folder, but you should create .htaccess file with mod_rewrite rule in forums root to allow accessing them as http://yourforumsroot/sitemap_1.xml.gz

Great work ,but I want to know if it's free to use or not?

Yahoo says that to submit a url list your file must be named "urllist.txt" or "urllist.txt.gz"

Just thought I'd share it with everyone.

EDIT #1: IOJAM -->
Thnx. I've done all that was listed in post #1354 (I know that number off by heart now!!! lol). I haven't got a clue if it all works as supposed, just that the files ARE being created and contain some stuff. If the BOTS don't like what's in my sitemaps, then bugger them.! I can only try, eh!?

EDIT #2: Google Sitemaps Error-->
Google Sitemaps said that my URL didn't exist, and after a while I realised that I hadn't stuck the .htaccess file in the right place... don't know about other ppl, but I had to stick the .htaccess file in the very root of my domain (the bit where no one gets a look in, unless you're admin).

EDIT #3: Google Sitemaps Error (part 2)-->
Carrying on from Edit #2, google decided that something was still wrong with the sitemap_index.xml.gz file. Google doesn't like what's written in this file, so I've pointed Google to the sitemap_1.xml.gz file instead.. no problems there.! But, the bigger problem was then with the sitemap_1.xml.gz file, that the vBAdvanced index page wasn't listed correctly in the xml file. To fix this, I had to nip into the vBAdvanced CMPS control panel in the VB ADMIN page, and in the MODULE SETTINGS under CMPS URL --> I had to write the FULL address of where the CMPS index is located. This has resolved all problems now. It's all funky and groovy, and is working like a dream.

All modifications avaliable for download from vBulletin.org are free to use. :)

Does one usually need to restart apache for it to read the .htaccess file? I've triple-checked things, (using cloudrunner's guide with VBA and /forum directory), and Google still gives me a 404...

If I try to access sitemap.txt.gz directly (www.mysite.com/sitemap.txt.gz) it also gives me a 404. The .htaccess is uploaded exactly as provided in the mod, to my www root. I've confirmed mod_rewrite is installed.

FIXED: I needed to have "AllowOverride All" added to the directory directive, in my virtualhost container in httpd.conf, to instruct it to consider .htaccess files.

Thank you :up: