New to installation, Sitemap help.

Hi again

I have just installed vbSEO everything went well , then I proceeded to install vbSEO sitemap 2.1 i think it was ,the latest one in My downloads area.

All has gone well I sighned up for a google webmaster account added http://mydomain.com and I allso added http://mydomain.com/forums and verified the domains with a html file. I then generated a sitmap

[homepage] [0s (+0s)]
[SECTION START] forumdisplay [0s (+0s)]
[forumdisplay] forum_id: 1, total threads: 0, pages: 1 [0s (+0s)]
[forumdisplay] forum_id: 17, total threads: 1, pages: 1 [0s (+0s)]
[forumdisplay] forum_id: 16, total threads: 0, pages: 1 [0s (+0s)]
[forumdisplay] forum_id: 6, total threads: 0, pages: 1 [0s (+0s)]
[forumdisplay] forum_id: 2, total threads: 14, pages: 1 [0s (+0s)]
[forumdisplay] forum_id: 8, total threads: 0, pages: 1 [0s (+0s)]
[forumdisplay] forum_id: 18, total threads: 2, pages: 1 [0s (+0s)]
[forumdisplay] forum_id: 5, total threads: 7, pages: 1 [0s (+0s)]
[SECTION START] showthread [0s (+0s)]
[archive homepage] [0s (+0s)]
[SECTION START] forumdisplay archived [0s (+0s)]
[SECTION START] member [0s (+0s)]
[SECTION START] polls [0s (+0s)]
[SECTION START] blogs [0s (+0s)]
[create sitemap file] filename: sitemap_1.xml.gz, number of urls: 177 [0s (+0s)]
[create sitemap in text format] part #1 [0s (+0s)]
[create sitemap index] filename: sitemap_index.xml.gz, number of sitemaps: 1 [0s (+0s)]

, and then downloaded it to my computer,then unrar the file and uploaded the sitemap_index.xml to my forum directory so the path should be http://mydomain.com/forums/sitemap_index.xmlthen I try and submit the sitemap to google but it fails

General HTTP error: 404 not found
We encountered an error while trying to access your Sitemap. Please ensure your Sitemap follows our guidelines and can be accessed at the location you provided and then resubmit.

Any help appreciated.

you should not be extracting it. Keep the files on your webserver. Then just give google the yoursite.com/forums/sitemap_index.xml.gz

Thankyou that worked.

How often should I update my sitemaps? or is it a run once thing.

Then update automatically for you everyday.

Ok I have eveyrhing uploaded and sitemap uploaded to google, just one last question.

The sitemap I generated and uploaded was to my forums ,can I use the same program to generate one for my homepage? or do I use something else ,help appreciated.

vBSEO Sitemap Generator includes only forum URLs in sitemap, you can manually add other links though by entering them in extra-urls.txt file (one URL per line).

so Would I add them like this -

Radio and TV
Forums - Downloads
Main Index - My Photo Gallery

I have entered them like this and generated a sitemap but it didnt look like it scanned those areas.

Help appreciated.

The links were added as I see:
http://taskforcealliance.com/forums/sitemap_1.xml.gz

HTML Code:

<url>
<loc>http://taskforcealliance.com/gallery/</loc>
<priority>1</priority>
<lastmod>2008-01-27T23:58:51+00:00</lastmod>
<changefreq>daily</changefreq>
</url>
−
	<url>
<loc>http://taskforcealliance.com/forums/radioandtv.php</loc>
<priority>1</priority>
<lastmod>2008-01-27T23:58:51+00:00</lastmod>
<changefreq>daily</changefreq>
</url>

However, you should either not include URLs outside of your forums OR move sitemap to the domain root: Sitemap in www root

Ok guys at the risk of sounding stupid ,by the way I have been up most of the night so this could explain a bit haha. I deleted my sitemaps I submittted to google yesterday ,and I added some extra Urls to the .txt file then I regenerated a new sitemap.

Now I think what I did yesterday was download the new sitemap by hitting the "Your Google Sitemap Index URL" but now it is just giving me this code? I want to work out how I downloaded the file yesterday.

I did find the file I was after, by poking around the server it was in the vbSEO Sitemap, Data Folder, so I made a copy and put it in my forum directory, and then re submitted it to google.

Should I just be linking the file directly to the vbSEO sitemap, Data folder instead?

And what have I forgotten ,because I cant work out how I downloaded the file in the first place yesterday lol.

Sorry guys I am really hopeless with these things and am basically learning as I go along.


Edit # outside the forums, I think I understand but they are actually part of the forums so does that still apply?

Hello,

you should NOT copy the files from data/ folder into your forums root, there is a rewrite rule in .htaccess that does process all sitemap requests.

Edit # outside the forums, I think I understand but they are actually part of the forums so does that still apply?

In case if URLs point outside of forums folder (i.e. domain root when forum is located in forums/), then you should "move" sitemap to the domain root:
1. create .htaccess as described in Sitemap in www root
2. define "Sitemap files URL" in vBSEO Sitemap Generator options as

Code:

http://www.domain.com

Ok thanks heaps, I think this helps a lot .

ok so i do not copy any site map anyware ,I just create the .htaccess file change my url ,generate sitemap, submit the url and sitemap to google and thats it?

Yes.