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

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
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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

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• 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.

[djbaxter]

Originally Posted by expatdirectory

There is a lesson to be learned here... its called read the mod text lol. I installed believing this was a stand alone mod, obviously I need to pick up the vbulletin SEO mod as well.

Thanks for the kick in the right direction Paul

It IS a standalone add-on. You do NOT need vBSEO to use it.

However, at least one of the options in settings is different depending on whether vBSEO is installed or not.

Oops... like Paul M said above. I replied before I read his reply.

[iojam]

geevest.com,

oh im sorry this is my report if im click run sitemap generator :

your sitemap is correct, I see no issues with it. "does not appear to have any style information" message is not an error since style is not required for sitemap.

[DarthCoder]

mod coder, can you answer me? Is there any special settings that is required in the apache config? because after enabling this mod and visiting any of the .html files gives error. Page doesnt exists.

[peterpigman]

Originally Posted by mpoorrajab

i have to pay money for vbSEO???

Apparently you do not need vbseo to install this, there are nulled versions of vbseo out there but the support is not good as you rely on people who are getting nothing out of it and if you get a problem you pretty much have to fix it yourself. I have a legit vbseo and must say that if they want to continue charging what they do for their product they need to improve support. You will get a problem fixed if you have one but it can be a day or two before it is done :down:. Sorry but if I am paying $150 + for something I want better support than that.

[mykkal]

Just installed vBSEO on my site and i'm loving the possibilities. This sitemap thing is really cool too.

Hopefully I can figure out how to get it working for the rest of my site.

http://www.MyModelTalk.com

[geevest.com]

friend,how about me?

This XML file does not appear to have any style information associated with it. The document tree is shown below.

−
<sitemapindex xsi:schemaLocation=" http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9 http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/09/siteindex.xsd">
−
<sitemap>
<loc>http://www.anakayam.us/forum/sitemap_1.xml.gz</loc>
<lastmod>2007-11-21T23:52:03+00:00</lastmod>
</sitemap>
</sitemapindex>

Google ping : FAILED.
anyone can help?

[peterpigman]

Originally Posted by mykkal

I installed vBSEO yesterday and am having all sorts of weird problems.

One is, after i installed the sitmeap generator i check the google sitemap page i'm suppoed to have and I get a 404 error. I have changed the correcy sitemap folder to chmod 777 and I even manually clicked "generate sitemap" form the admin control panel. That portion seems to work but I don't see the files generated anywhere.

The link i'm trying to view is:

http://www.mymodeltalk.com/jobs/sitemap_index.xml

I had to add some more to my htaccess file, I added...

# Comment the following line (add '#' at the beginning)
# to disable mod_rewrite functions.
# Please note: you still need to disable the hack in
# the vBSEO control panel to stop url rewrites.
RewriteEngine On

# Some servers require the Rewritebase directive to be
# enabled (remove '#' at the beginning to activate)
# Please note: when enabled, you must include the path
# to your root vB folder (i.e. RewriteBase /forums)
RewriteBase /

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^forum\.yoursite\.com
RewriteRule (.*) http://forum\.yoursite\.com/$1 [L,R=301]

and it worked. Dunno why but it did. This suited my setup so I guess you would need to change it to suit your own.

[ForosAbiertos]

Summary:
============================
Forum Display: 1198
Show Thread: 19006
Show Post: 24386
Member Profiles: 604
Poll Results: 30
Archive: 687

Total Indexed URLs: 45912
Total Processing Time: 50.72 seconds

Google ping: FAILED.
Yahoo ping: FAILED.
Ask ping: FAILED.
Moreover ping: FAILED.

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

Before updating it works well

Someone know because this happens?

[Pod]

When I run the scheduled task with the blogs option activated I got an error:

Fatal error: Call to undefined function vbseo_any_url() in (forum home dir)/vbseo_sitemap/vbseo_sitemap_functions.php on line 424

That line is:

vbseo_add_url(vbseo_any_url($vbseo_vars['bburl'].'/blog.php'), 1.0);

The function vbseo_any_url doesn't seem to be used anywhere else in the mod (I did a cat * |grep any_url), and I tried just removing it, and the mod worked just fine (the blog urls are included).

Maybe that function is defined in vbSEO as proposed before in this thread, but this line is executed even if you set "vbSEO installed?" to No. There are plenty of functions with similar names defined, like vbseo_url_thread, so maybe they forgot to implement that one? Or to remove it from that line if it's deprecated?

Well, at least in my case, the mod works just fine with blogs and without vbSEO installed just removing the reference to that function.

[DarthCoder]

CAN SOMEONE WHO got this mod work paste their complete apache config to me? because it gives error on all .html pages for me when I enable the mod. I am sure its the apache settings that failed.