Administrative and Maintenance Tools - vBSEO Google/Yahoo Sitemap Generator

vBSEO Google/Yahoo Sitemap Generator - vBulletin 3.6.x
Download vB 3.8.x Compatible Version Here
Download vB 3.7.x Compatible Version Here
Download vB 3.5.x Compatible Version Here
Download vB 3.0.x Compatible Version Here

Note: Version 2.5 replaces all previous versions of the vBSEO Google/Yahoo Sitemap Generator, and now includes support for all the new URL types in vBulletin 3.8.x.

Overview
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Providing Google, Yahoo, Ask sitemaps is an essential step towards improving your forums.

The "vBSEO Google Sitemaps" plugin provides a solution that allows your forum to be indexed by the Google (and also Yahoo and Ask) search engines faster, more completely, more effectively, and with less bandwidth consumption.

The ultimate goal is to help you achieve more web traffic for your forum.

Originally Posted by Google's Description of GSM

https://services.google.com/inquiry/publishertools?hl=en_US
Google Sitemaps is an easy way for you to help improve your site?s representation in the Google index. It's a collaborative crawling system that enables you to communicate directly with Google. You get a smarter crawl because you can provide Google with specific information about all your web pages, such as when a page was last modified or how frequently it changes.

Note: This plugin is fully compliant with vBSEO 3.x version. The current version is vBSEO 3.2. However, if you are running vBSEO, please upgrade to vBSEO 3.2 or greater before installing.

Compatibility
============================


Fully compatible with:

• vBulletin 3.0.x, 3.5.x, 3.6.x, 3.7.x and 3.8.x
• vBulletin Blogs 1.0.x and 2.0.x *Optional
• vBSEO 2.x, 3.x *Optional

What does it do?

============================

• Auto-generates a Google XML sitemap for all of your specified forum URL types (including vBulletin Blog URLs).
• Auto-generates a Yahoo text sitemap for all of your specified forum URL types.
• Auto-notifies Google when a new sitemap is generated.
• Automatically sends you a summary of the sitemap generation via email each time it is created.
• Includes only publicly accessible forums and threads.
• Allows Google/Yahoo to find all of your forum URLs without having to spider the forum to find the links.
• Allows Google/Yahoo to find your forum URLs without having to account for query string and/or session ID information.
• Allows Google to give precedence to crawling your higher priority forum pages.
• Allows Google to give precedence to crawling your forum pages that change more frequently.
• Allows you to conserve bandwidth by more efficiently facilitating the crawling processes for GoogleBot and Yahoo Slurp.
• Is 100% compatible with the static CRUs (Content Relevant URLs) used by vBSEO-enabled forums.

How does it work?
============================

Whenever it is scheduled or invoked via the URL, this plugin will generate both the Google XML formatted and the Yahoo text formatted sitemaps. If you selected "Yes" to the Google auto-notification setting, Google will be notified each time the sitemap is generated. The Yahoo sitemap must be manually submitted to http://submit.search.yahoo.com/free/request/.

• Google Sitemap files are gzipped
• Forum and thread pages are listed with pagination (i.e. all pages for each forums/thread are included in the sitemap)
• Maximum Priority is set for Sticky threads.
• Optimization for sitemap generation on large forums.

Automated Reporting Tool
============================

The vBSEO Sitemap includes a report tool, allowing you to track your progress. To access your reports enter the following URL:

http://www.example.com/forums/vbseo_sitemap/

NOTE: Replace "http://www.example.com/forums/" with the full URL to your vB forum root.


You will be required to login by providing your "Sitemap Interface Access Password" from your vBSEO Sitemap settings in:

• vBulletin Admin CP (for 3.5.x/3.6.x/3.7.x/3.8.x users) OR
• vbseo_sitemap.php configuration file (for 3.0.x users) located in the vbseo_sitemap directory in your forum root.

Once you successfully login, you will be provided with a list of 'Useful Links'. Here are the 4 main links:

Show Reports List
The 'Show Reports List' link will display a report of each time your vBSEO Sitemap generator executed, including the (1) date, (2) run time, (3) total URLs included, and (4) and change in # of URLs included from the last generation.

Each vBSEO Sitemap generation record will include a (1) "View details" and (2) "Remove record" link. The "View Details" link shows more detailed information about the sitemap generated. The "Remove record" will permanently delete the record from your reports.

Show Sitemap Downloads Log
The 'Show Sitemap Downloads Log' link will display a report of each time your vBSEO Sitemap was downloaded by either a search engine (GoogleBot or Yahoo) or by another user agent (i.e. Web browser, etc.).

The report includes the (1) date, (2) name of sitemap file downloaded, (3) Bot, (4) IP address of the downloader, and the (5) User-agent.

Each vBSEO Sitemap download record will include a "Remove record" link which will permanently delete the record from your reports.

Run Sitemap Generator
The 'Run Sitemap Generator' link will automatically regenerate your Google and Yahoo sitemaps.

Your Forums Homepage
The 'Your Forums Homepage' link is a quick link back to your forum homepage.

Additional Links
Additional links to various other related SEO resources are also included.


Click "Install"
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Please click "Install" to show your support for this script.


Installation & Configuration for vB 3.5.x, 3.6.x, 3.7.x and 3.8.x as a Plugin
============================

Follow the installation/upgrade instructions provided in the docs/readme.html file.


Google Webmaster Accounts
============================

It is NOT required for you to have a Google Webmaster account to run the vBulletin Google Sitemaps plugin. If you decide to setup an account for testing purposes you can do so here:
http://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/login?sourceid=gsm&subid=us-et-about2


Copyright & Licensing

============================

• vBSEO Google Sitemaps plugin is copyright protected by Crawlability Inc.
• You are free to download and install this plugin on any vBulletin forum for which you hold a valid vB license.
• Unauthorized distribution of any code and/or documentation, whole or in part, included here is strictly prohibited.
• In addition, the following copyright notice must be maintained.

vBSEO(TM) ? 2005-2009 Crawlability, Inc.


Revision History
============================

02/22/2009 - Version 2.5 Released

NEW FEATURE: Blog tags URLs are included.
NEW FEATURE: Social Group Discussion URLs are included.
NEW FEATURE: Smart Priority applied for the following URL types

1. Show Post
2. Member Profiles
3. Forum Display
4. Poll Results
5. Blog Entries
6. Member Profile Albums
7. Social Groups
8. Social Groups Discussions
9. Social Group Pictures
10. Tags
11. Blog Tags

UPDATE: Compatible with vBulletin 3.8.x. Includes the following updated settings:

1. Priority Range - Show Post
2. Priority Range - Member Profiles
3. Priority Range - Forum Display
4. Priority Range - Poll Results
5. Priority Range - Show Thread
6. Priority Range - Blog Entries
7. Priority Range - Member Profile Albums
8. Priority Range - Social Groups
9. Priority Range - Social Group Pictures
10. Priority Range - Tags

Fix: Social Group Discussion database error is fixed.

Upgrade Instructions
============================

(1) Follow the installation/upgrade instructions provided in the docs/readme.html file.

(2) For versions of vBulletin 3.6.x only: Open "Schedule Manager" in the vBulletin Admin Control Panel (admincp); Remove existing scheduled task for Sitemap Generator if you have one.
Note: The new task will be automatically setup when you import the XML product file.

Other vBSEO Plugins

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• vBSEO - vBulletin Search Engine Optimization
  
• vBSEO Conditional Signatures for vBulletin

vBSEO Affiliate Program
============================

We welcome you to join the vBSEO Affiliate Program.

[iojam]

Ohiosweetheart,

please try to add "RewriteBase /forums/" line to your .htaccess (replace /forums/ with your folder name).

djbaxter,

You can now locate the sitemap file wherever you wish as long as you specifiy the alternate location in the robots.txt file

As it is said in the sitemap protocol (the page you have linked to):

The location of a Sitemap file determines the set of URLs that can be included in that Sitemap. A Sitemap file located at http://example.com/catalog/sitemap.xml can include any URLs starting with http://example.com/catalog/ but can not include URLs starting with http://example.com/images/.

And couldn't find a mention that sitemap can be located anywhere in case of robots.txt usage.

[Mecho]

Hi ,

i have 3 questions :
1 - i have 102,142 Links and it takes 450.17 s !! i think it s not normal . is there anyway that we can set when seo is active forum will be close ?? something like that ?

2 - before i had all Sitemaps in my forum directory , but now they r only in /forum/vbseo_sitemap/data/ ! and i can not locate the last one in Google webmaster page . i did wrong somewhere ??

3 - when i want to Active HOT LINK PROTECTION i get this error :

Apache detected an error in the Rewrite config.

Syntax error on line 12 of /home/public_html/.htaccess.aBB5r2n0IFH0udJZ1rinBr6RsFDCR5zV:
RewriteRule: cannot compile regular expression '.*\.(sitemap.*\.(xml\.gz|txt)$'
Please try again.

is it about SEO ? or what ?

thanks in advance

[iojam]

Hello,

1. it is suggested to set the execution time for scheduled task to the moment with minimal activity on your forums

2. you should create .htaccess file as described, the files will still be saved in data/ folder, but you will be able to access them in forums root

3. what is your complete .htaccess file contents?

[Yellow Slider]

I'm getting a blank page when running the script, i've just moved to a new server,
the PHP limit time to run scripts is 1000 Sec'
what can i do? i really need it back..

I've been using it for a year now..
what to do?

[iojam]

Hello,

do you get any details in server's error log?

[Yellow Slider]

no there isn't any thing in the server error log..

[Mecho]

Originally Posted by iojam

Hello,

1. it is suggested to set the execution time for scheduled task to the moment with minimal activity on your forums

2. you should create .htaccess file as described, the files will still be saved in data/ folder, but you will be able to access them in forums root

3. what is your complete .htaccess file contents?

about #1 : i found the option in setting : " Delay Execution After Each Sitemap File " but what amount u should suggest me ? is it second or minute or what ? ( default is 0 )

about #2 i : saw that my .htaccess is not available in forum directory !! so i made it again and now it works well .

about #3 :
my site is redirect from public_html to public_html/forum . so i have just one .htaccess in /forum directory and this is is :

RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^(sitemap.*\.(xml|txt)(\.gz)?)$ vbseo_sitemap/vbseo_getsitemap.php?sitemap=$1 [L]

is it correct ? or i should have it in root directory too ? thanks

[Yellow Slider]

I've fixed the problem, now i have a new problem, in the past i've used vBSEO, it isn;t installed now.
when i'm submitting my sitemaps to google they return errors after downloading the sitemaps -

HTTP Error:
URL:
URL:
URL:
URL:
URL:
Date found: 301 (Moved permanently) [?]
http://www.atraf-f.net/2036039-post12.html
http://www.atraf-f.net/1993365-post23.html
http://www.atraf-f.net/1870981-post55.html
http://www.atraf-f.net/1924662-post12.html
http://www.atraf-f.net/1959712-post6.html
Jun 11, 2007

URLs not followed
When we tested a sample of the URLs from your Sitemap, we found that some URLs were not accessible to Googlebot because they contained too many redirects. Please change the URLs in your Sitemap that redirect and replace them with the destination URL (the redirect target). All valid URLs will still be submitted. [?]

what is this? i don't have any "1959712-post6.html" in my forum..

I also have it -
rrors
General HTTP error: 404 not found
We encountered an error while trying to access your Sitemap. Please ensure your Sitemap follows our guidelines and can be accessed at the location you provided and then resubmit. [?] HTTP Error:
Date found: 404 (Not found) [?]
Jul 6, 2007

but when i'm trying to access the sitemaps it's working ..

but some do work..
sitemap_142.xml.gz Sitemap Web Apr 2, 2007 7 hours ago OK 10000

[iojam]

Mecho,

1. that depends on how is your server load affected. You can try to set it to 20-30 seconds.
3. yes, this is correct.

[Mecho]

Thanks iojam