Board Optimization - vBSEO Search Engine XML Sitemap

vBSEO Search Engine XML Sitemap 3.0
We are extremely pleased to inform the vBulletin.org community that a fully revamped version of the vBSEO Search Engine XML Sitemap (previously "vBSEO Google/Yahoo Sitemap Generator") v.3.0, is being released to all licensed vBulletin users effective immediately!

Note: The NEW vBSEO Search Engine XML Sitemap 3.0 replaces all previous versions of the "vBSEO Google/Yahoo Sitemap Generator", and includes support for all the new URL types in vBulletin 4.x.

New in the vBSEO Search Engine XML Sitemap v.3.0
The new sitemap alters the way data is structured in fundamental ways. Sitemap 3.0 segments different content areas into separate files, so you end up with a unique set of files per content type: forums, blogs, cms, groups, albums, members, tags, etc. In addition, the new sitemap has an extended priority feature that utilizes the built in 'weight' tool of the vBulletin XML sitemap generator for individual forums, CMS sections and articles to act as a multiplier.

We believe these changes are responsible for delivering increased returns for a number of forums from customers and testers we've been tracking. Please track your own progress via your Google Webmaster tools account, Google Analytics or Gravity Insights.

A Clean and Beautiful Interface
The new sitemap also features a clean and beautiful interface, built from the ground up. We believe it reflects the quality, precision and attention to detail placed into each aspect of this release. We are passionate about building software, and great software is beautiful inside, and out.

Overview
============================

The "vBSEO Search Engine XML Sitemap" plugin provides an easy to use solution that allows your forum to be indexed by all major search engines, including Google, Yahoo, Bing, and Ask, 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 3.5.x versions. The current version is vBSEO 3.5.2. If you are running vBSEO, please upgrade to vBSEO 3.5.2 (or greater) before installing for optimal results.

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

Fully compatible with:

• vBulletin 3.8.x, 4.0.x, 4.1.x
• vBulletin Blogs *Optional
• vBulletin CMS *Optional
• vBSEO 3.5.2 + higher *Optional

What does it do?
============================

• Auto-generates an XML sitemap for all of your specified forum URL types (including vBulletin Blog & CMS URLs).
• NEW! Groups forum areas into individual sitemaps grouped by section type for greater flexibility, for example:
  • sitemap_forum_X.xml.gz
  • sitemap_tags_X.xml.gz
  • sitemap_cms_X.xml.gz
• Auto-notifies Search Engines when a new sitemap is generated (optional)
• Automatically sends you a summary of the sitemap generation via email each time it is created (optional)
• Includes only publicly accessible forums and threads and includes the option of not including any specific public forums
• Allows Search Engines to find all of your forum URLs without having to spider the forum to find the links. Great for Deep Page linking!
• Allows Search Engines to find your forum URLs without having to account for query string and/or session ID information.
• Allows Search Engines to give precedence to crawling your higher priority forum pages.
• Allows Search Engines 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, Yahoo Slurp, Ask's Teoma, Bing's msnbot, and other search engine bots.
• Is 100% compatible with the static CRUs (Content Relevant URLs) used by vBSEO-enabled forums.
• Is 100% compatible with the 'Friendly URLs' offered default with vb4.x.

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

Whenever it is scheduled or invoked via the URL, this plugin will generate an XML formatted that search engines are able to read and parse. If you selected "Yes" to the Auto-notification setting, The 4 major search engines will be notified each time the sitemap is generated.

• Google Sitemap files are gzipped for space savings
• 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 -> vBSEO -> vBSEO Sitemap Settings
  

Once you successfully login, you will see a number of tabs. Here are the 4 main links:

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.

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 (Identified by the Bot's name) 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.

Search Engine Bots Activity Log
Use it to track Search engine activity on your sitemaps. This area displays how often, and what volume of pages search engines visit your site on a daily basis.

Run Generator
The 'Run Sitemap Generator' link will automatically regenerate your vBSEO Search Engine XML Site sitemaps.

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

Click "Install"
============================
Please click "Mark as Installed" to show your support for this script.

Installation, Upgrade, & Configuration
============================
Follow the installation/upgrade instructions provided in the docs/readme.html file.

Webmaster Accounts
============================
It is NOT required for you to have a Webmaster account on the search engines' websites to run the plugin, however, we recommend everyone set one up for tracking purposes.

• Google Webmaster Central. Get data about crawling, indexing and search traffic. Increase traffic to your site.
• Bing Toolbox
• https://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/

Copyright & Licensing
============================

• vBSEO Search Engine XML Sitemap 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) ? 2010 Crawlability, Inc.

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

11/11/2010 - Version 3.0 Released
Compatible with vB3.7.x+ and vB4.x+
NEW FEATURE: All CMS URLs are supported
NEW FEATURE: Sitemap Groups by content type
NEW FEATURE: Enhanced layout and design of the Sitemap Generator Control Panel
NEW FEATURE: XSL Style sheet of the xml files for easier human reading
NEW FEATURE: Extended Priority. Utilizes the built in 'weight' tool of the vBulletin XML generator for all content areas (Forums, Blogs, CMS, Albums, etc.) to act as a multiplier. (vb4 Suite only)

Other vBSEO Plugins
============================

• vBSEO - vBulletin Search Engine Optimization

vBSEO Affiliate Program
============================
We welcome you to join the vBSEO Affiliate Program.

[briansol]

Originally Posted by Jigsaw!

The .htaccess file is located in the root of my vBulletin, in vbseo_sitemap/data i cannot access it the htaccess file says "deny from all" checked in notepad.

do not touch the data/ htaccess file. That is there for security reasons since it is a writable folder.

where showthread.php is, the htaccess file should be placed in the same location.

[briansol]

Originally Posted by Jigsaw!

All done, but still the same thing, i edited the .htaccess in the data folder and set the folder to 777, should i also recurse in sub directories too?, I uploaded everything the htaccess folder into root, includes and vbseo_sitemap folder, everything is working fine, apart from the sitemap links showing me a 404 error.

Assuming an apache DSO instance of php,
the data FOLDER should be 777. The items contained with it should be 644.
If you're on fast cg, etc, your items may be marked differently, perhaps 640. Consult your host for more info on proper security settings for files.

do not upload the htaccess FOLDER.
upload the .htaccess FILE in the htacces FOLDER to your site root, as outlined in the instructions.

There are 10 different webserver rewrite modules in the folder.... if you're on apache, you need to .htaccess one.

[briansol]

Originally Posted by jarni

Im having the same problem for some reason it always thinks that my sitemap is in Sitemap Index: http://m2mscoop.com/forum/sitemap_index.xml.gz

As my forum is in my root directory, that folder doesn't even exist. Is there a way to have the sitemap installed into my root directory? I think it worked 1 time but never since then.

Check that your vboptions -> vbseo sitemap options -> Sitemap Files url is left BLANK.

99.99% of the time, this should be left blank.

[briansol]

Originally Posted by eng999

how can i make topics will be always in sitemap without i make run sitemap after every topic???

you don't. It's designed to be run once a day, per the task.


You can run it multiple times a day by altering the scheduled task, but this is not recommended and un-necessary. Bots will still crawl your site and find new links. This just helps gets the deep linked pages (like, page 6 that doesn't have a link from the thread start on a 10 page thread) noticed and followed.

Remember, the sitemap is only a guideline of urls to visit. It is not a be-all "bots will only visit" list.

[briansol]

Originally Posted by idwpub

I've installed and i'm getting the following when I run the generator -

Please try re-FTP'ing all files again and re-import the product with over-write.

Please try disabling all other plugins any try to run it again. If it runs, re-enable one at a time and re-run until it doesn't work anymore, and you have found the conflicting plugin to report to us.

[briansol]

Originally Posted by cdement

It is working just great now! Only other problem I seem to run into is the medialibrary add-on. I also use the vba add-on as well but it doesn't seem to matter if I have them both in the add-on setting box in the options or just have medialibrary only in there. I get a sitemap error that looks something like this:

The XML page cannot be displayed 
Cannot view XML input using XSL style sheet. Please correct the error and then click the Refresh button, or try again later. 


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A semi colon character was expected. Error processing resource 'http://MYSITE.com/vbseo_sitemap/vbseo_getsitemap.php?s...

  <loc>http://MYSITE.com/media.php?do=details&mid=1</loc>
--------------------------------------------...

Have any ideas what I could be doing wrong or if there is something to correct?

& should be & in xml. The add-on is incorrect and should be edited.

Note, the addons folder is mostly user-generated from vbseo users, who thus make pretty urls like media/media-title/ and never print dynamic urls to the sitemap for non-vbseo customers.

[cdoyle]

I'm trying to add the sitemap to google tools, but it doesn't seem to be working.

The path should be
forums/vbseo_sitemap/data/sitemap_index.xml.gz

right?

I get this error
General HTTP error: HTTP 403 error (Forbidden)
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.

[briansol]

Originally Posted by lgnd

Thanks for the upgrade!
Ran into the following error, disabled the tags and now it's working!

Database error in vBulletin 4.0.8:

Invalid SQL:

           SELECT COUNT(*) as cnt,max(lastpost) as lastupdate
           FROM vbulletinthread AS thread
           INNER JOIN vbulletintagcontent AS tagcontent ON
           (tagcontent.tagid = 356 AND tagcontent.contentid = thread.threadid)
           WHERE thread.forumid IN()
           AND thread.visible = 1
           AND thread.sticky IN (0, 1)
           AND thread.open <> 10
           GROUP BY tagcontent.tagid;

MySQL Error   : You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near ')
           AND thread.visible = 1
           AND thread.sticky IN (0, 1)' at line 5
Error Number  : 1064
Request Date  : Wednesday, November 17th 2010 @ 06:45:43 PM
Error Date    : Wednesday, November 17th 2010 @ 06:45:43 PM
Script        : http://www.honda-legend.hu/vBulletin/vbseo_sitemap/vbseo_sitemap.php
Referrer      : http://www.honda-legend.hu/vBulletin/vbseo_sitemap/index.php?rlist=true
IP Address    : 81.183.89.39
Username      : Nem regisztr?lt
Classname     : vB_Database
MySQL Version :

WHERE thread.forumid IN()

should have a group of fourms in there.

ie,

WHERE thread.forumid IN(1,2,3)


is tag id 361 in a public forum?

you can run a manual query in phpmyadmin to find the theread:
SELECT *
FROM tagcontent
where tagid = 361


that should give you the postid that you can then find (content ID)

[briansol]

Originally Posted by cdoyle

I'm trying to add the sitemap to google tools, but it doesn't seem to be working.

The path should be
forums/vbseo_sitemap/data/sitemap_index.xml.gz

right?

I get this error
General HTTP error: HTTP 403 error (Forbidden)
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.

No, you should add the htaccess file (or add the rule to your existing file) and submit

http://www.site.com/forums/sitemap_index.xml.gz

The data/ folder is NOT directly accessible for security reasons (since it's writable, not being callable stops any rogue scripts from running).

[SEW810]

Hello

Maaaan, here I go again.

My password is defined. Now, when I try to http://www.mysite.com/my_vb_path/vbseo_sitemap/ it request me a user name.

Hell, I've tryed with my nick name, "admin" word, and nothing works.
What easy thing am I doing wrong?

Regards