The Arcive of Official vBulletin Modifications Site.

Forum Site Map for Search Engines · **Released**: 11-03-2002

Just a very quick hack that will print a static php page listing your categories and topics.

Search engines like Google wont index a dynamic URL off a dynamic URL so by providing a static page listing your topics dynamic URL's you will get a deeper crawl. I know there are different approaches on this board to optimizing for Google, but try this as well. It works

I then just create a link from the home page to the this file (you should try and name it sitemap.php or something similar.

Please note that I have deliberately not used any vbulletin templates etc... the goal of this page is to be as simple and clean as possible for crawlers like Google and AlltheWeb to index as much as possible.

Example of output here: http://www.sizematters.com.au/forums/sitemap.php

Just cut and paste the code and play. In another version I made it so the first 100 characters of the first post in each topic was created, but I dont think it helps much.

PHP Code:


			


<?php require('./global.php');



// This file can be saved as any name, but upload to your forum dir.



// Only real variables for you to change. Include the trailing /



$siteurl = "http://www.sizematters.com.au/forums";

$sitename = "SizeMatters";



// You can safely edit the header and footer as well.



?>



<html>



<head>

<title>SizeMatters Forum Site Map</title>

<meta name="description" content="">

<meta name="keywords" content="">



<style>

<!--

h1           { font-family: Verdana; font-size: 14pt; color: #666666 }

h2           { font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12pt; color: #666666 }

body         { font-family: Verdana; font-size: 8pt; color: #666666 }

p            { font-family: Verdana; font-size: 8pt; color: #666666 }

-->

</style>



</head>



<body>



<?php



echo "\r\n<h1>$sitename Forum Site Map</h1>\r\n";



echo "\r\n<p>Click here to return to <a href='$siteurl/'>$sitename</a></p>\r\n";



echo "\r\n<h2>$sitename Forum Categories</h2>\r\r\n";



$result = mysql_query("SELECT title, forumid, description FROM forum ORDER BY forumid");



echo "<b>Number of Forums: </b>".mysql_num_rows($result)."<br><br>\r\n";



while($row = mysql_fetch_assoc($result))

{

      echo "<a href='$siteurl/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=".$row["forumid"]."'>".$row["title"]."</a> - ".$row["description"]."<br>\r\n";



}



echo "\r\n<h2>$sitename Most Recent Forum Topics</h2>\r\r\n";



$result = mysql_query("SELECT title, threadid FROM thread ORDER BY threadid LIMIT 20");



echo "<b>20 Most Recent Topics</b><br><br>\r\n";



while($row = mysql_fetch_assoc($result))

{

      echo "<a href='$siteurl/showthread.php?s=&threadid=".$row["threadid"]."'>".$row["title"]."</a><br>\r\n";

      

}



echo "\r\n<h2>$sitename Forum Topics</h2>\r\r\n";



$result = mysql_query("SELECT title, threadid FROM thread ORDER BY title");



echo "<b>Number of Topics: </b>".mysql_num_rows($result)."<br><br>\r\n";



while($row = mysql_fetch_assoc($result))

{

      echo "<a href='$siteurl/showthread.php?s=&threadid=".$row["threadid"]."'>".$row["title"]."</a><br>\r\n";

}



?>



</body>



</html>

If you do make some changes that you think work well - please share

NOTE: This version WILL show contents of private forums if you have them. If you have certain forums you dont want to have their content listed - see the revised code a couple of posts below.

MaXxed · #22 12-08-2002, 10:37 PM

Google has posted some new guidelines, and one point about site maps is that they should contain less than 100 links. I wonder if this can be modified to spread over a number of pages?

nintendo · #23 02-08-2003, 09:39 PM

With so many links on one pages, this makes it look like a Linkfarm, and search engines don't like those. Listing 50 posts at a time would make the Googlebot more happy.

Webdork · #24 02-10-2003, 10:42 PM

I havent had any problems with over 1,000 links on a page

Depends on your PR as to how many will get crawled...

99SIVTEC · #25 02-17-2003, 10:33 PM

well it definetly worked on my sites. I have tons of hits from the sitemap everyday, but I checked my server log and JUST the sitemap.php file is using almost 3GB of bandwidth a month. Any way to gzip the output and possibly shorten it to only include a hundred or so links?

Brain Crusher · #26 02-17-2003, 11:10 PM

can i make it also for only categories

or only the newest 50 topics?

99SIVTEC · #27 03-04-2003, 03:41 AM

I checked and even your sitemap (the one on the 1st page) is almost 1MB in size. That's a ton of bandwidth.

gmarik · #28 05-24-2003, 11:22 AM

I dropped the file in vbfolder/sitemap/index.php and changed ../global.php but nothing seemed to work. Any idea why?

X vBulletin 3.8.12 by vBS Debug Information
Page Generation 0.04244 seconds Memory Usage 2,283KB Queries Executed 24 (?)
More Information
Template Usage: (1)SHOWTHREAD (1)ad_footer_end (1)ad_footer_start (1)ad_header_end (1)ad_header_logo (1)ad_navbar_below (1)ad_showthread_beforeqr (1)bbcode_php (1)footer (1)forumjump (1)forumrules (1)gobutton (1)header (1)headinclude (1)modsystem_post (1)navbar (6)navbar_link (120)option (1)pagenav (1)pagenav_curpage (2)pagenav_pagelink (8)post_thanks_box (8)post_thanks_button (1)post_thanks_javascript (1)post_thanks_navbar_search (8)post_thanks_postbit_info (7)postbit (8)postbit_onlinestatus (8)postbit_wrapper (1)spacer_close (1)spacer_open (1)tagbit_wrapper Phrase Groups Available: global inlinemod postbit posting reputationlevel showthread	Included Files: ./showthread.php ./global.php ./includes/init.php ./includes/class_core.php ./includes/config.php ./includes/functions.php ./includes/class_hook.php ./includes/modsystem_functions.php ./includes/functions_bigthree.php ./includes/class_postbit.php ./includes/class_bbcode.php ./includes/functions_reputation.php ./includes/functions_post_thanks.php Hooks Called: init_startup init_startup_session_setup_start init_startup_session_setup_complete cache_permissions fetch_postinfo_query fetch_postinfo fetch_threadinfo_query fetch_threadinfo fetch_foruminfo style_fetch cache_templates global_start parse_templates global_setup_complete showthread_start showthread_getinfo forumjump showthread_post_start showthread_query_postids showthread_query bbcode_fetch_tags bbcode_create showthread_postbit_create postbit_factory postbit_display_start post_thanks_function_post_thanks_off_start post_thanks_function_post_thanks_off_end post_thanks_function_fetch_thanks_start post_thanks_function_fetch_thanks_end post_thanks_function_thanked_already_start post_thanks_function_thanked_already_end fetch_musername postbit_imicons bbcode_parse_start bbcode_parse_complete_precache bbcode_parse_complete postbit_display_complete post_thanks_function_can_thank_this_post_start pagenav_page pagenav_complete tag_fetchbit_complete forumrules navbits navbits_complete showthread_complete
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