Vanilla 2.1.6 using plugin ForceRedirect breaks SiteMaps plugin URL /sitemapindex.xml

rotaecho

I think ForceRedirect is an awesome plugin, it really does keep the privacy of the forum from the public. I dig it (=

Doing a Q/A analysis of my site, I noticed using Vanilla 2.1.6 with ForceRedirect v1.3 breaks SiteMaps 1.2.1

I didn't see a post for it if it exists.

Thanks!

vrijvlinder

ForceRedirect only redirects to a specified page such as login. It has absolutely no effect on anything else other than redirection.

I do suggest you create your site maps before enabling the plugin. Pages that are not allowed to be viewed by redirection can't and should not be crawled anyway imo.

peregrine

http://vanillaforums.org/discussion/comment/190663/#Comment_190663

vrijvlinder

Well then , I guess that is that... you should know that I am incapable of making plugins that interact adversely with anything. I am not that good... yet

rotaecho

@peregrine‌ that link (browsing quickly) looks similar to my thoughts. I do want the sitemap accessible for getting category information for google. So, that's pretty much what I'm wanting to do.

@vrijvlinder‌ you're making progress, so don't beat yourself up. You did make a plugin that worked, and that I was able to use The fact the plugin blocked the sitemaps shows it's effectiveness.

I just think we can make a middle ground to make it more friendly to SEO optimization and findings on google, but without compromising discussion content or user privacy.

I'll give the plugin a few hacking today to see if I can get it to allow access to the sitemaps URL.

Thanks!

rotaecho

@vrijvlinder‌ I was thinking this plugin possibly could lock a "Members Only" discussion that's not publicly viewable (redirects to login). Then the forum community can have public based discussions google can index and then "Members Only" discussions that can't be seen till membership is joined to create a private portion of the public community. Not sure how hard that is with the sitemaps fix. I've been tracing stuff around trying to figure how to do it myself.

Just a thought

rotaecho

@vrijvlinder‌ I read else where that SiteMaps isn't really beneficial to Vanilla Forums, so I disabled / removed that plugin.

I still think if able to define an array of "Members Only" discussions that Guest access is unable to read therefore google won't crawl against would be a cool addition to this plugin

Thanks!

vrijvlinder

You may be able to achieve that via the robots file

https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/6062608?hl=en

peregrine

robots file is just a suggestion. the crawlers may not follow the suggestions.

rotaecho

Yep, I've had plenty of stuff ignore robots in the past I'll revisit this request later or when I have some down-time try and build my own plugin to support the feature.

Thanks!

vrijvlinder

the crawlers may not follow the suggestions.

pretty much like some people often do !!!

I am sure it works to some extent, I have gotten results in search with google where only the link appears and it says it could not fetch the info due to the robots file.
Surely it is not all powerful etc. But it is something no?

peregrine

http://tools.seobook.com/robots-txt/

https://www.seroundtable.com/google-robotstxt-advice-12759.html

http://www.elegantthemes.com/blog/tips-tricks/how-to-create-and-configure-your-robots-txt-file

vrijvlinder

Excellent info p , thanks!