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How does the Sitemaps plugin work?
I am talking about the Sitemaps plugin approved by the Vanilla dev team.
How does it work?
- does it show only the 'n' latest threads or posts?
- or does it automatically create a sitemap index with multiple sitemaps each containing 30 to 50 thousand links?
EDIT: I can access a sitemap on my forum by going to http://example.com/discussions/sitemap.index.xml - - so has the sitemaps plugin been integrated into Vanilla?
Anyone using this plugin, please throw some light. Thanks!
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Best Answers
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Todd
Vanilla Staff
The sitemaps just show the index pages of each category. Those pages, once crawled will all have links to every discussion which is exactly what google crawls. The sitemap is there to ensure that crawlers can have 100% site coverage, not to give the crawler 100% of your pages itself.
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Answers
If you can see that sitemap.index.xml then the next step is to submit it to Google webmaster tools. Set up your site with the Google and poke around for the sitemap section.
Todd, does the sitemap plugin ping search engines automatically? If so, which search engines are pinged? when a post is made? (Google, Bing, Ask, etc.)
It doesn't ping any search engines no.
One last question Todd. VF.org doesn't seem to be using the sitemaps plugin. I don't see a sitemap. Are you doing something else?
Yeah, I just uploaded a new version of the sitemaps plugin that is much simpler than the old one and doesn't require any fussing.
@Todd : I don't understand. The new version of Sitemaps looks like an experiment to me. It has separate sitemaps for different categories - fine! But instead of links to the posts themselves, the category sitemaps link to category index pages - page1, page2 and so on. Links to posts aren't there.
I do know that the category index pages show the latest posts, but the category index pages can't substitute sitemaps. Sitemaps are easier for search engines to crawl, hence there's a chance for the new post on your forum to get indexed quickly.
I would really like to know if this is a knowledgeable decision from your end, or a trial.
I am saying this because this is not the way it's usually done. I hope you can clarify. (We are messing with Google.)
The sitemaps just show the index pages of each category. Those pages, once crawled will all have links to every discussion which is exactly what google crawls. The sitemap is there to ensure that crawlers can have 100% site coverage, not to give the crawler 100% of your pages itself.
I hope it works. Thanks for the update by the way.
I really encourage you to also educate yourself. This forum isn't your only source of information you know?
For instance, Google's webmaster tools help has a lot of information for webmasters. From the first sentence:
Emphasis mine.
@Todd : I know! The only reason why I wanted to confirm the change with you is because it's against convention. Not that I know a lot, but I have never seen a sitemap like that.
I am not trying to argue, but the point I wanted to emphasize was "making it easier for search engines to crawl your pages" and not just ensure that crawlers can have 100% site coverage.
Due to spammers these days, they delay in Google crawling your web page can be a pain. The quicker your web page is crawled the better.