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


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?
============================

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
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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.

[Alfa1]

http://myforumsroot/sitemap_index.xml.gz and http://www.mysitename.com/sitemap_index.xml.gz do not work for me or for google.
Yahoo faithfully downloads my sitemap every week. But other MSN, Google and Ask do not. Pings to all SE are successful. robots.txt is good.
I have followed installation instructions.
How do I fix this?

[varkjie]

i submitted the page to google and came back with errors for
http://www.coupontradercentral.com/ctc/sitemap_1.xml.gz
and
http://www.coupontradercentral.com/ctc/sitemap_2.xml.gz

I have no idea whats going wrong with this??
I took a look inside the .htaccess fold thats inside /data/ and that one said "deny from all" not sure if thats correct or if the may be playing a part in this??

[GoTTi]

Originally Posted by Alfa1

http://myforumsroot/sitemap_index.xml.gz and http://www.mysitename.com/sitemap_index.xml.gz do not work for me or for google.
Yahoo faithfully downloads my sitemap every week. But other MSN, Google and Ask do not. Pings to all SE are successful. robots.txt is good.
I have followed installation instructions.
How do I fix this?

what is robots.txt and do i need it on my forums for this mod to work right?

[Mark.B]

Originally Posted by GoTTi

what is robots.txt and do i need it on my forums for this mod to work right?

No...robots.txt just controls spider activity.

[rule0]

Originally Posted by GoTTi

my site is already submitted to yahoo, do i have to submit the www.site.com again or should i submit the forum this time around, www.site.com/forums/ or should i submit a direct link to one of the xml.gz files that has been created?

thanks.

ps...

i do not have vbseo. do i need vbseo for this to work?

* if what you submitted, the urllist file, differs from the one you create with vbseositemap, and vbseositemap one includes the old ones urls, then you better submit the new one.

[rule0]

Originally Posted by GoTTi

i am also seeing, like usual, a lot of these in my users online area:

crawl-66-249-67-184.googlebot.com

and

lj513278.crawl.yahoo.net

arent these now suppose to download or read the xml.gz file because i do not see any traffic under the "Sitemap Downloads Log" area.

1) googlebot may be indexing your site content (even if the site doesnt have sitemap)
2) if you have adsense ads on site's pages, then google media agent may be checking content for ad relevancy.
so it doesnt have to be sitemap related all the time. if you submit and it succesfully reads the sitemap file, you will surely see the activity in vbseositemap reports.

[GoTTi]

what am i suppose to submit to yahoo and google, if anything? direct link to the xml.gz file?

[raagaswaram]

is it worth it use sitemap without vbseo?

[Super Jinni]

I reinstalled vbseo generator and deleted the vbseo_sitemap folder form the forum root the uploaded a fresh copy that I downloaded just now from here.
when I went to the vBSEO Sitemap Reports I found that the url of (Your Google Sitemap Index) still there before I generate it. after I generated it it still the same as before. and the sitemap ends with .xml not
with .gz as in the other website...

I've done everything that mentioned... but the problem still there..
hopeless

[ziahaq21]

i'm having problem in getting sitemap. Here's what i did
uploaded all the files as per instructions in folder (forum) under my root folder i.e
www.mydomain/forums/
here i installed vbseo_sitemap,
i gave 777 permission to data folder
i also updated.htaccess file too
everything is done i think correctly.

but how to add sitemap
i visited www.google.com/sitemaps
there i don't know what to put, in this forum sometimes i see vbseo_sitemap.xml.gz
and sometimes different
do i have to put like this
www.mydomain.com/forums/vbseo_sitemap.xml.gz or
http://www.mydomain.com/forums/vbseo...sitemap.xml.gz

Can anyone just mention everything from start to end on how to install and what files have to change, and in which folder we have to install, whether root, or else. Please if anyone did installed correctly give me the step by step procedure. I will be very greatful to him

waiting for someone to help me out.