vBSEO Google/Yahoo Sitemap Generator for vBulletin 3.6.x, 3.5.x & 3.0.x

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

[caliman]

Ok. Any ideas on this?

Originally Posted by caliman

My spider log appears not to be working, any ideas where to look at this?
Also is there a way to trim old entries?

THANKS!

[LocutusofBorg]

any idea when 1.7 will be out? And does it work with Zoints SEO url rewrite?

[FreshPrince]

Question: What does this mean?

A. Upload the 'vbseo_sitemap' folder to your forum root.

1. CHMOD 777 the 'vB-root/vbseo_sitemap/data/' folder

I've done this before, but I forgot exactly what this instruction means.

Thank you.

[FreshPrince]

Any ideas on this?

[tansu]

Originally Posted by FreshPrince

Any ideas on this?

Right click the folder with your ftp client, "permissions" or "chmod" or something like that. type 777. Thats all.

[Pottsy]

Freshprince,

First hit in Google brings this:
http://support.discusware.com/center...wto/chmod.html

[iojam]

caliman,

SE bots logging only works on boards with vBSEO installed, make sure that it is enabled in your vbseocp.

[caliman]

Originally Posted by iojam

caliman,

SE bots logging only works on boards with vBSEO installed, make sure that it is enabled in your vbseocp.

Just checked, it's set to yes, yet I haven't had anything logged since July. :surprised:

[Cloudrunner]

Couple of things I noticed. This does run well on a 3.6.4 board. Great mod by the way. However, the documentation is a little lacking.

Therefore, I'll post what I found to be a pain for me to search for:

1. When you setup your CRON via the control panel, you must set the new cron job option "Log Entries" otherwise it will not log in the admincp at all.
2. When you have run a successful creation and are going to submit it to Google, you must have a site setup for http://www.your-domain.com/forum/.
3. When you submit your sitemap for spidering you must tell google that it is located at http://www.your-domain.com/forum/sitemap_index.xml.gz (your mod_rewrite needs to be working properly and in the /forum/ directory .htaccess file properly to work.
4. For those of us who are using vBAdvanced CMPS you MUST make one very big change after activating the vbseo_sm_vba.php addon in the admincp Options panel: Find the following code in your /forum/vbseo_sitemap/addon/vbseo_sm_vba.php file:

   $vba_url = $vbseo_vars['bburl'] . '/';

   Replace that with the following:

   $vba_url = '';

   otherwise your root links will look like this: http://www.your-domain.com/forum/http://www.your-domain.com/index.php?s=blah and as we all know that will give you a big old hairy 404.

While I say that this is a wonderful modification that does work on 3.6.4, the documentation should be updated and the code on the vba module fixed to avoid any further issues with people giving up in frustration on getting this thing to work. This information took me well over 6 hours to wade through to find the fixes. I would have preferred to not have had to waste my time like that if at all possible. Thus, I post this in the hopes that someone else does not waste theirs needlessly.

Just my 2pennies. Take it with a grain of salt.

I do have one question though. How does Google know via the auto-notification that it is *my* sitemap that it is being notified about since there is no place for me to add a link or other information to send it to? Just curious is all...

Cloudrunner

[kall]

Originally Posted by Cloudrunner

Couple of things I noticed. This does run well on a 3.6.4 board. Great mod by the way. However, the documentation is a little lacking.

Therefore, I'll post what I found to be a pain for me to search for:

1. When you have run a successful creation and are going to submit it to Google, you must have a site setup for http://www.your-domain.com/forum/.
2. When you submit your sitemap for spidering you must tell google that it is located at http://www.your-domain.com/forum/sitemap_index.xml.gz (your mod_rewrite needs to be working properly and in the /forum/ directory .htaccess file properly to work.

I do have one question though. How does Google know via the auto-notification that it is *my* sitemap that it is being notified about since there is no place for me to add a link or other information to send it to? Just curious is all...

You are actually supposed to create the sitemap for the topmost level.. ie, root, rather than /forums/. The .htaccess does the magic part, and google sees the files as being in root, rather than /forums/vbseo_sitemap/data/.

Google then knows that is the sitemap to update, as it comes from that domain. (To the best of my knowledge).