Google sitemap for the vB Archives. Redirect human and robots.

Release V1.2 (9 Nov 2005)
* Higher sitemap priority rate is given to threads with new posts. So Google can index fresh threads first.

* Not recommending the original optional STEP 3 hack. To avoid potential Google penalty, my advice is to remove the STEP 3 hack.

Release V1.1a (12 Oct 2005)

* Bug fix only

Release V1.1 (9 Oct 2005)

* Can handle very large forums with more than 50,000 URLs per forum
URLs will be spanned through multiple files for each large forum.

* Created a function to detect search engine crawlers. The vB built-in
search engine detector can only identify about 3 or 4 search engines.
My function will detect over 20 search engine crawlers.

* Support forums hosted by web servers that do not support 'fix_pathinfo'
ie. instead of the usual 'archive/index.php/f-10.html' link. These
forums have a link as 'archive/index.php?f-10.html'.

* Alert about wrong directory permissions to help newbies.

* Automatically write index file to archive directory if the php
script can not write into the base vB directory.

* Bug fixes.


Objectives
==============

• Create Google sitemap files and sitemap index file for vB archives, submit to Google by the Scheduled Tasks.
• To have the vB Archive used as a mirror to the actual threads.
• Google loves the nature of the archive pages, as they are static and do not contain repeated contents.
• Google gauge pages heavily based on external links. We need to redirect these external thread links to the archive pages.
• We often see vbulletin archive in the Google search results, but the users are taken to the archive page instead of the actual threads. We need to automatically redirect visitors to the actual threads instead of the archive. Otherwise the visitor either need to reclick for the Full Version or read the dull archive contents.

Q and A
==============
Q. Would the sitemap contain the links for hidden forums?
A. No, the forum permission was consulted while generating the sitemap files.

Q. How often are the sitemap files generated?
A. You decide and set in the Scheduled Tasks. The script can not be called by external user by default to prevent boring people killing your server.

Q. Is the sitemap file compressed.
A. Yes, the multiple sitemap files are gunziped according to Google sitemap standard to save bandwidth. Sitemap index file is not compressed, it is submitted as a normal xml file.

Q. Would the sitemaps include links for the normal threads? eg. showthread.php?t=1234...
A. No, it is unlikely Google will index your entire site if you feed it with all the combination of showthread links. It is better to let Google going through the more static archives. You will have a better chance for sure to have more thread contents indexed by Google this way.

Q. Why don't you go crazy about rewrite rules and do things like including thread title as the url.
A. I won't deny having keywords in the url is a good SEO strategy, but Google also does not like "Over Search Engine Optimized" web sites. Google has recently penalized a huge number of such sites. Sending them from page rank of 5, 6 to 0.

Q. Does sitemap really help?
A. Definitely, Google has done over 60,000 pages since I submitted my sitemaps a few days ago. Yahoo bots were visiting more pages than Google before the sitemap. I expect the total Google visits for this month will be exceeding Yahoo in the next one or two days.

What is involved?
==================
I have divided this hack into two steps. The first step involves unloading a php file. This enables the sitemap to be generated and submitted to Google.

The second step involves installing a Plugin using AdminCP. This sends all robots to the archive pages, preventing them viewing the actual threads.

For example, Google/Other Crawlers follows an external link to visit:
http://forums.mysite/showthread.php?t=1234&page=2

It will be told this page is permanently relocated to:
http://forums.mysite/archive/index.php/t-1234-p-2

This way you don't lose page rank gain from external links.

Install
=========
To install, follow the readme file.
To let me know you have installed this and let me send update information to you. Please click INSTALL .

Strategy
=========

It is unlikely Google/other Search Engine will index your entire site, especially due to the dynamic nature of the vbulletin forums. An archive sitemap will let Google concentrate on the real contents of your forums -- the threads. If Google needs to go through the endless member profile pages. It will get sick of it and just become tired.(sorry, perhaps robots can not become tired). What we can do is disallowing the crawling of unneccessary pages. My robots.txt contains:

#ALL BOTS
User-agent: *
Disallow: /admincp/
Disallow: /ajax.php
Disallow: /attachments/
Disallow: /clientscript/
Disallow: /cpstyles/
Disallow: /images/
Disallow: /includes/
Disallow: /install/
Disallow: /modcp/
Disallow: /subscriptions/
Disallow: /customavatars/
Disallow: /customprofilepics/
Disallow: /announcement.php
Disallow: /attachment.php
Disallow: /calendar.php
Disallow: /cron.php
Disallow: /editpost.php
Disallow: /external.php
Disallow: /faq.php
Disallow: /frm_attach
Disallow: /image.php
#Disallow: /index.php
Disallow: /inlinemod.php
Disallow: /joinrequests.php
Disallow: /login.php
Disallow: /member.php?
Disallow: /memberlist.php
Disallow: /misc.php
Disallow: /moderator.php
Disallow: /newattachment.php
Disallow: /newreply.php
Disallow: /newthread.php
Disallow: /online.php
Disallow: /payment_gateway.php
Disallow: /payments.php
Disallow: /poll.php
Disallow: /postings.php
Disallow: /printthread.php
Disallow: /private.php
Disallow: /profile.php
Disallow: /register.php
Disallow: /report.php
Disallow: /reputation.php
Disallow: /search.php
Disallow: /sendmessage.php
Disallow: /showgroups.php
Disallow: /showpost.php
Disallow: /subscription.php
Disallow: /usercp.php
Disallow: /threadrate.php
Disallow: /usercp.php
Disallow: /usernote.php

You perhaps have noticed I included index.php in there. Apparently Google regards http://forums.mysite/index.html as same as http://forums.mysite/
...but http://forums.mysite/index.php as a different file. The default vB templates include index.php as the internal link. That will spread your page rank on your home page! So it is better off not letting Google see this file.

If you have rewrite installed. Perhaps you could add to the .htaccess file:

RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} ^$
RewriteRule ^index.php$ / [R=301,L]

(if your forums are under http://site/forums/. Try: RewriteRule ^forums/index.php$ forums/ [R=301,L])

That will redirect /index.php to /, but only if no query_string is presented. ie. /index.php?do=mymod will not be redirected.

[lierduh]

Originally Posted by flaregun

hmm i changed permissions and It still wont work, should I create a blank g_sitemap.xml file in the forums dir?

What is the permission setting for your forums directory? At the base of the vb directory. Do this

#ls -l ../

and copy the result here.

[flaregun]

now I'm getting this, I change the persmissions in the archive folder, but I still get it.

Warning: gzopen(/public_html/forum/archive/sitemap_3.gz): failed to open stream: Permission denied in /archive/forums_sitemap.php on line 132

[alkatraz]

haven't upgraded to 3.5 yet but used your robots.txt file, thx!

[MrNase]

Nice but I can't use it.. My shared host doesn't allow me to change permissions for ./

[lierduh]

Originally Posted by MrNase

Nice but I can't use it.. My shared host doesn't allow me to change permissions for ./

Easy, find "/g_sitemap.xml" (3 places) and replace it with "/archive/g_sitemap.xml". The sitemap index file will be written to 'archive' directory.

[lierduh]

Originally Posted by flaregun

now I'm getting this, I change the persmissions in the archive folder, but I still get it.

Warning: gzopen(/public_html/forum/archive/sitemap_3.gz): failed to open stream: Permission denied in /archive/forums_sitemap.php on line 132

That means the permission is wrong. Please do a #ls -l and copy the result here.

[jdingman]

The install directions are very confusing. You may want to include very detailed instructions so anyone can install it. Such as where to find the Scheduled task stuff and all that. I'm very new and I had no idea where any of it was, so therefor I have not gotten it installed.

[flaregun]

Originally Posted by lierduh

That means the permission is wrong. Please do a #ls -l and copy the result here.

Permissions in what folder? I followed the instructions as best I could. Could you list all dir that must be changed?

note, my forum is in a sub folder from the root, is that what is messing this script up?

thanks,

- R

[lierduh]

Originally Posted by flaregun

Permissions in what folder? I followed the instructions as best I could. Could you list all dir that must be changed?

note, my forum is in a sub folder from the root, is that what is messing this script up?

thanks,

- R

The readme.txt:
The sitemap files will be created in the archive directory. The index
file will be created in the base vBulletin directory. It is important
a sitemap resides in the base directory. Google assumes you have the
permission to submit the sitemap when the sitemap is not located
in the sub directory.

It is perhaps easier if you post the part that you do not understand. ... and most importantly, list your current directory structure and what you have done. You said you have changed permissions, then what have you changed? I have asked twice for you to copy the result of #ls -l. I don't know what should I presume, be it you can't access to shell or your web server is Windows based? I don't know... I think we have serious communication problem, we do not understand each other by the sound of it.

[lierduh]

Originally Posted by jdingman

The install directions are very confusing. You may want to include very detailed instructions so anyone can install it. Such as where to find the Scheduled task stuff and all that. I'm very new and I had no idea where any of it was, so therefor I have not gotten it installed.

Go to your AdminCP (Admin Control Panel), look down on the left hand side.