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

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.

[Cedric_FP]

Originally Posted by msimonds

okay my dumb.... i got it to work

have one question:

I can view my sitemap.txt file

I am getting errors on the others

The XML page cannot be displayed






am i doing something wrong

I am also getting this error. It only hapopens when using the rewrite, if i access it directly via vbseo_sitemap/data/sitemap1.xml.gz, it works fine.

Any update on this error?

[ConqSoft]

Any issues since this stuff is open to anyone?

Example: http://www.vbseo.com/vbseo_sitemap/

[Cedric_FP]

Well, as it turns out, folks at vbseo are also having problems with the URL rewrite and the sitemap_1.xml.gz

It probably means google can't get the sitemap either?

[ConqSoft]

Not sure. I added a direct link to the sitemap_1.xml.gz into my Google Sitemap account. Waiting for it to pick it up now.

[D|ver]

is it possible to also set the priority and the frequency for those extra pages in extra-urls.txt ?

[Cedric_FP]

Originally Posted by ConqSoft

Not sure. I added a direct link to the sitemap_1.xml.gz into my Google Sitemap account. Waiting for it to pick it up now.

You won't be able to because google requires that the sitemap file be in the root directory of the url you are adding.

Ie.

www.yoursite.com/forums/sitemap.xml.gz

not

www.yoursite.com/forums/blah/blah/sitemap.xml.gz

[ConqSoft]

It accepted it, and verified it just fine....

Edit: And it shows that it was downloaded and status is OK. :up:

[ConqSoft]

Originally Posted by ConqSoft

Any issues since this stuff is open to anyone?

Example: http://www.vbseo.com/vbseo_sitemap/

Nevermind, they added a password to theirs now. And I found where to add it to mine.

[Cedric_FP]

Yeah, in the admin CP.

[jward]

@stormblast, MrNase:

Very nice hack but unfortunately it doesn't seem to be PHP5 compatible:

We are investigating the apparently PHP5 incompatibility you noted.

@kall:

Amazingly scary typo in the install instructions Juan!

Thank-you for catching the error in the install instructions. It has been updated.

@michaelbenson:

Excellent addition guys, will surely be worth it. What about the T2DMAN version? Which performs ideally the same function, should that be uninstalled and that installed over?

Once we correct the initial bugs that have been reported here, we recommend that you update to our sitemap. We are better equipped to provide user support and upgrades on a full time basis.

@Macindy:

Should I activated index posts?

You can include show posts. If you are getting a memory error, try reducing your 'Max URLs in Sitemap Files' setting from its default of 50,000 to 20,000.

@Aftermath:

EXCELLENT HACK! Thanks.

Thank-you for the support.

@nitro:

Is this the vbSEO lite edition that was coming soon or is it a different product ?

No - this is not vBSEO Lite. This is our Google/Yahoo Sitemap Generator. It is compatible with non-vBSEO enabled forums as well as those running vBSEO 2.2.0 Full and vBSEO Lite (once released).

@mentalrz, Disi, dastar, Cedric_FP:

We are looking into the problem with the sitemap URLs.

@TheComputerGuy:

Does this require Ion Cube to be installed?

No - this is visible source code.

@ConqSoft:

I see that it has a list of forumids to exclude. I assume that it also looks at permissions and will automatically not include any forums that aren't open for viewing by Unregistered/Not Logged In users?

We will look into the problem you noted with threads included for non-guest access forums, as well as the 'Redirect To Home Page' vBSEO config option.

@quachvu:

What version of PHP are you running?

@msimonds:

PHP Code:

 // Run from vB Scheduled Tasks Manager ONLY
 
'vbseo_sm_crononly' => '0', 


As MrNase noted, the value should be set to 0.

@msimonds,ConqSoft:

You don't need to view them. Just log into Google's Sitemaps site: http://www.google.com/webmasters/si...id=us-et-about2

And point it to your gzipped sitemap file.

We submit the sitemap files to Google automatically upon generation if you have the 'Auto-Notify Google' set to 'Yes'.

@ConqSoft:

Any issues since this stuff is open to anyone?

Example: http://www.vbseo.com/vbseo_sitemap/

Yes - make sure you set your 'Direct Script Run Code' to a character string to use as a password when accessing your sitemap reports. We uploaded the latest version and had not yet set our run code.