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
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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?

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• 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
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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.

[Black Tiger]

The mod is working ok, but the addons are not as supposed to, neither are they updated.
User vbSEO is the coder/developer. Seems to me he's to busy with the paid vbSeo version to give support to this mod.
Maybe he only views this thread once a month, I don't now.

um.. it isnt generating my sitempas automatically...
is there anyway to do it without clicking on Run generator button?

Yes, you can make a cronjob for it. Normally by installation this cronjob would be generated automatically for version 3.6.8.
See section E in the readme.html in the docs directory, for how to put in a cronjob manually.

[alessai2]

it doesnt creates my sitemap in 3.6.8 :s

it just starts the sitemap generator, and gives error, doesnt creates

Scheduled Task Log Viewer (page 1/1) | There are 52 total log entries.
ID Action Date Info
468 vBSEO Sitemap Generator 02:03, 16th Feb 2008 Google Sitemap [Started]
461 vBSEO Sitemap Generator 02:12, 15th Feb 2008 Google Sitemap [Started]
451 vBSEO Sitemap Generator 02:09, 14th Feb 2008 Google Sitemap [Started]
442 vBSEO Sitemap Generator 19:20, 13th Feb 2008 Google Sitemap [Started]
435 vBSEO Sitemap Generator 07:03, 6th Feb 2008 Google Sitemap [Started]

[Black Tiger]

And your /vbseo_sitemap/data folder (so the /data folder) is chmod 777?

[DaFlameking]

im still having the Internal Server Error =/

i have put the rewrite base to /forum
in my .htaccess inside my forum directory and everything else

any help?

[Black Tiger]

MySQL Error : Lost connection to MySQL server during query

I know not much about Mysql server, but this speaks for itself. Problem is you're losing the connection during the query. Maybe you can try to put persistent connections to on in the /includes/config.php.

$config['MasterServer']['usepconnect'] = 1;

I'm not sure if it helps, but trying can do no harm. If it's already on, try turning it off.
If this won't help, I don't know either.

Found also that all the php files in this mod were made using some Windows editor like Wordpad or someting like that.
Wenn looking in Editpad Lite, they can all be converted to "unix", and that's no good either. Should already be distributed this way. Using windows editor can cause the risk having unvisible layout signs in documents, which can cause linux configfiles cause strange things.
So the mod is very nice, the quality and support are bad. Sorry but that's an honest opinion.

[alessai2]

i forgot to tell you something, that i am running my forum on a cluster server..
is this causing the problem?

[glennybee]

Hi all, thanks for this mod.

I have it installed ok (I think) and I'm receiving emails telling me that the new sitemap.xml file has been created and the search engines are pinging ok.

But if I go into http://www.domain.co.uk/forums/vbseo_sitemap/index.php and select http://www.domain.co.uk/forums/sitemap_index.xml.gz it comes up with a 404 page not found error.

If the sitemap is being created, where is it being stored?

I don't have vBSEO installed, running vBulletin 3.6.8.

Thanks for any help.
Glen

[Black Tiger]

@Alessai2: Could be but I don't know, I've no knowledge of clusterservers.

@Glennybee: This is already been explained x-times in this thread. Have a look and you sure will find the answer.

[glennybee]

Originally Posted by Black Tiger

@Glennybee: This is already been explained x-times in this thread. Have a look and you sure will find the answer.

I'm new to this m8 and to be honest, I couldn't be bothered to read 43 pages in the hope that it was there but now that I know it's there I will give it a good read!

Thanks for the pointer!

[iojam]

Black Tiger,

The ?> was not the fix to the problem with downloads.php as i thought, still errors

what is the full add-on file code you are currently using?



alessai2,

is the sitemap created successfully when executed in vbseo_sitemap/ interface?



DaFlameking,

please make sure that your server supports mod_rewrite module and rewrite rules are allowed in .htaccess.



glennybee,

did you create .htaccess file in forums folder?