Gossamer Forum: Products: Gossamer Links: Development, Plugins and Globals: [FREE] SiteMap

Veteran / Moderator (17297 posts)

Jun 20, 2008, 8:01 AM

Post #1 of 40

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[FREE] SiteMap

Hi,

This isn't anything special. I wanted to build up .xml SiteMaps (for submitting to google), and decided it was just as good to write my own version :P

Please download from here, to get the most current version: http://www.ultranerds.com/..._3_0_x/SiteMap_L262/

Very simple to use.

1) Install
2) Edit settings (mainly this is if you want to also build detailed pages)
3) Run it from the admin are
4) The URL that is reported back to you - go into Google Webmasters, and submit your sitemap.

In theory, this will help you get better visability on google (and also more of your "hidden" pages found).

Its not a foolproof system - but as a SEO guy told me - you've got nothing to loose - it can only help Smile

Enjoy.

Cheers

Andy (mod)
andy@ultranerds.co.uk

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Last edited by:

Andy: Jun 29, 2008, 11:51 PM

Jun 20, 2008, 8:44 AM

Enthusiast (559 posts)

Jun 20, 2008, 8:44 AM

Post #2 of 40

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Re: [Andy] [FREE] SiteMap In reply to

Great tool, thanks Andy.

Jun 21, 2008, 5:31 AM

Enthusiast (826 posts)

Jun 21, 2008, 5:31 AM

Post #3 of 40

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Re: [Andy] [FREE] SiteMap In reply to

Hi Andy,
great idea, thanks for that.
I don't know if I'm right, but isn't there a limit for 100 urls in the google sitemap?
I think google tells, to submit more than 100 urls you should submit more sitmaps with different names...

Matthias
gpaed.de

Jun 21, 2008, 5:35 AM

Veteran / Moderator (17297 posts)

Jun 21, 2008, 5:35 AM

Post #4 of 40

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Re: [Matthias70] [FREE] SiteMap In reply to

Hi,

Mmm.. not sure. I submitted a site with 4000+ links, and that one worked fine. If that is the case, maybe I'll come up with a new version, which is a paid plugin - as that will most likely be a lot more work =) (as it needs "spliting" up the URLs)

Cheers

Andy (mod)
andy@ultranerds.co.uk

Jun 21, 2008, 5:43 AM

Enthusiast (826 posts)

Jun 21, 2008, 5:43 AM

Post #5 of 40

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Re: [Andy] [FREE] SiteMap In reply to

Hi Andy,
I just had a look. Google is talking about a sitemap with links to other sitemaps.
This sitemap should not have more than 1000 urls to other sitemaps.

Normal sitemaps can have up to 50000 urls.

I just defined detailpages in my sitemap ;-)

Matthias
gpaed.de

Jun 21, 2008, 5:45 AM

Veteran / Moderator (17297 posts)

Jun 21, 2008, 5:45 AM

Post #6 of 40

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Re: [Matthias70] [FREE] SiteMap In reply to

Hi,

Ah ok - thats cool - so they are just saying you can't include more than 1000 references to other .xml sitesmaps :)

Quote:

Normal sitemaps can have up to 50000 urls.

Yeah, that should easily be enough for most people :)

Quote:

I just defined detailpages in my sitemap ;-)

Cheers

Andy (mod)
andy@ultranerds.co.uk

Jun 21, 2008, 11:59 AM

Gorospe

User (149 posts)

Jun 21, 2008, 11:59 AM

Post #7 of 40

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Re: [Andy] [FREE] SiteMap In reply to

I had a bad experience with sitemaps.

I read all the info, followed all the rules, etc etc... and this is what happened:
My site got banned from submitting a sitemap, the PR went from 6 to 0 and my visitors from google and my site was nowhere to be found.
After 5 or 6 months, I was taken back to a PR4, and now Im not permitted to send another sitemap of that same site.
The site is nothing special or add, nothing that would break any rules, morale, or anything out of this world.
Now Im stuck at PR4, no sitemap, cant upload another and dont even know what went wrong.
I love google visitors, but for some reason, google sitemaps didnt love me.

Be careful.

Juan Carlos

Jun 28, 2008, 3:25 AM

Enthusiast (826 posts)

Jun 28, 2008, 3:25 AM

Post #8 of 40

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Re: [Gorospe] [FREE] SiteMap In reply to

Hi Andy,
google is telling me, that I have an invalid date in some sitemap entries?
The invalid dates are all with the tag lastmod?
and the date format is like this 2008-04-20 01:46:43?

Do you have an idea, how to fix this.
Perhaps the date of the last Modification of an link is different from the other dates?

Thanks

Matthias
gpaed.de

Jun 28, 2008, 4:44 AM

Veteran / Moderator (17297 posts)

Jun 28, 2008, 4:44 AM

Post #9 of 40

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Re: [Matthias70] [FREE] SiteMap In reply to

Hi,

Thats a little awkward.

You could try changing (in /admin/Plugins/SiteMap.pm):

Code:
  my $today = GT::Date::date_get();

..to:

Code:
  my $today = GT::Date::date_get() . ' 00:00:00';

...and, just after:

Code:
        my $url = $CFG->{build_detail_url} . '/' . $DB->table('Links')->detailed_url( $hit->{ID} ); # . '/' . $CFG->{build_index};

..add:

Code:
  $hit->{Mod_Date} = $hit->{Mod_Date} . ' 00:00:00';

The problem is, that Mod_Date is only stored as yyyy-mm-dd, instead of yyyy-mm-dd hh:mm:ss

It's probably possible to do a bit more advanced stuff with the Timestmp field, but thats as little more complex, as seeing as this is a free plugin (and I'm pretty busy =)), its not something I'd really wanna look into too much =)

Anyway, hope the above solution works.

Cheers

Andy (mod)
andy@ultranerds.co.uk

Jun 28, 2008, 6:00 AM

Enthusiast (826 posts)

Jun 28, 2008, 6:00 AM

Post #10 of 40

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Re: [Andy] [FREE] SiteMap In reply to

Hi Andy,
I changed the code to the one above.
Now I'm waiting, what google says ;-)

Thanks

Matthias
gpaed.de

Jun 28, 2008, 7:56 AM

Veteran / Moderator (17297 posts)

Jun 28, 2008, 7:56 AM

Post #11 of 40

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Re: [Matthias70] [FREE] SiteMap In reply to

Hi,

I've added these changes in now, so they include 00:00:00 into the URL's.

The new version can be downloaded from the first post in this thread (version 1.1).

Cheers

Andy (mod)
andy@ultranerds.co.uk

Jun 28, 2008, 12:24 PM

Enthusiast (559 posts)

Jun 28, 2008, 12:24 PM

Post #12 of 40

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Re: [Andy] [FREE] SiteMap In reply to

Each of my pages changes on rebuild- featured links etc. so I just replaced <lastmod>Mod_Date</lastmod> with <lastmod>$today</lastmod> and missed out the time altogether. Google happy with this.

The problem is they look for 'T' between the date and time. ie: yyyy-mm-ddThh:mm:ss

Jun 28, 2008, 12:54 PM

Veteran / Moderator (17297 posts)

Jun 28, 2008, 12:54 PM

Post #13 of 40

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Re: [Alba] [FREE] SiteMap In reply to

Hi,

Alba wrote:

The problem is they look for 'T' between the date and time. ie: yyyy-mm-ddThh:mm:ss

Sorry, I'm not sure what you mean?

Cheers

Andy (mod)
andy@ultranerds.co.uk

Jun 28, 2008, 1:07 PM

Enthusiast (559 posts)

Jun 28, 2008, 1:07 PM

Post #14 of 40

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Re: [Andy] [FREE] SiteMap In reply to

Google sitemaps expect to find dates in one of these formats:

Quote:

yyyy-mm-dd

Quote:

yyyy-mm-ddThh:mm:ss

Jun 28, 2008, 1:09 PM

Enthusiast (826 posts)

Jun 28, 2008, 1:09 PM

Post #15 of 40

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Re: [Andy] [FREE] SiteMap In reply to

Hi Andy,
I google says the date is still invalid
This are the two only valid formats

2005-02-21
2005-02-21T18:00:15+00:00

Thanks

Matthias
gpaed.de

Last edited by:

Matthias70: Jun 28, 2008, 1:10 PM

Jun 29, 2008, 1:47 AM

Enthusiast (559 posts)

Jun 29, 2008, 1:47 AM

Post #16 of 40

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Re: [Matthias70] [FREE] SiteMap In reply to

From Google sitemap help pages
http://www.google.com/...;topic=13452#lastmod

Quote:

Specify when a page was last changed
Use the optional lastmod tag to indicate when a page was last modified. Use the date format YYYY-MM-DDThh:mmTZD, where the date and time value are optional.

Jun 29, 2008, 4:27 AM

Enthusiast (826 posts)

Jun 29, 2008, 4:27 AM

Post #17 of 40

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Re: [Alba] [FREE] SiteMap In reply to

Hi Andy,
so there are two solutions:
1. Include a T between date and time
or
2. Print lastmod without time.

Thanks
Matthias

Matthias
gpaed.de

Jun 29, 2008, 6:06 AM

Enthusiast (559 posts)

Jun 29, 2008, 6:06 AM

Post #18 of 40

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Re: [Matthias70] [FREE] SiteMap In reply to

Matthias70 wrote:

so there are two solutions:
1. Include a T between date and time
or
2. Print lastmod without time.

...and to fulfill the latter, I've just used 'today's date' because all my pages get updated every time I rebuild.

Jun 29, 2008, 6:46 AM

Veteran / Moderator (17297 posts)

Jun 29, 2008, 6:46 AM

Post #19 of 40

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Re: [Alba] [FREE] SiteMap In reply to

Hi,

Try changing: (in /Plugins/SiteMap.pm);

Code:
my $today = GT::Date::date_get() . ' 00:00:00';

..to:

Code:
my $today = GT::Date::date_get() . 'T00:00:00';

..and:

Code:
$hit->{Mod_Date} = $hit->{Mod_Date} . ' 00:00:00';

..to:

Code:
$hit->{Mod_Date} = $hit->{Mod_Date} . 'T00:00:00';

That should do whats needed. If so, I'll get it fixed up the the proper plugin =)

Cheers

Andy (mod)
andy@ultranerds.co.uk

Jun 29, 2008, 7:18 AM

Enthusiast (826 posts)

Jun 29, 2008, 7:18 AM

Post #20 of 40

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Re: [Andy] [FREE] SiteMap In reply to

Hi Andy,
google still does not like all links

Google does not like this entry
2008-06-29T00:00:00

And all categories are still displayed without T
like this
2008-06-15 19:09:51

Perhaps it's better to cut off the time and show only the date!

Thanks

Matthias
gpaed.de

Jun 29, 2008, 8:23 AM

Veteran / Moderator (17297 posts)

Jun 29, 2008, 8:23 AM

Post #21 of 40

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Re: [Matthias70] [FREE] SiteMap In reply to

Hi,

Mmm.. thats how I had it in the first version :P

Just change:

Code:
my $today = GT::Date::date_get() . 'T00:00:00';

Code:
my $today = GT::Date::date_get();

...and delete this line:

Code:
$hit->{Mod_Date} = $hit->{Mod_Date} . ' 00:00:00';

Cheers

Andy (mod)
andy@ultranerds.co.uk

Jun 29, 2008, 9:28 AM

Enthusiast (826 posts)

Jun 29, 2008, 9:28 AM

Post #22 of 40

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Re: [Andy] [FREE] SiteMap In reply to

Hi Andy,
categories still have date and time
like this
2008-06-16 23:59:27

Matthias
gpaed.de

Jun 29, 2008, 1:54 PM

Enthusiast (559 posts)

Jun 29, 2008, 1:54 PM

Post #23 of 40

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Re: [Matthias70] [FREE] SiteMap In reply to

This is precisely the problem that I experienced with previous attempts to use a plugin to create a sitemap.

In your plugin, as I said earlier, I replaced the code

Quote:

with

Quote:

<lastmod>$today</lastmod>

which gives me today's date but no time & is acceptable to Google.
This is OK providing your pages are modified each time you rebuild.

Jun 29, 2008, 11:33 PM

Veteran / Moderator (17297 posts)

Jun 29, 2008, 11:33 PM

Post #24 of 40

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Re: [Alba] [FREE] SiteMap In reply to

Hi,

Ok, I've made a new version with a couple of changes.

Version 1.2 can be got here: http://www.ultranerds.com/..._3_0_x/SiteMap_L262/

There is an extra setting in the plugin, which lets you decide if you want to use the current date, or last modified date for the categories/links.

It also fixes up the problem with the categores showing yyy-mm-dd hh:mm:ss

Enjooy Smile

Cheers

Andy (mod)
andy@ultranerds.co.uk

Jun 30, 2008, 2:33 AM