vBSEO Google/Yahoo Sitemap Generator for vBulletin 3.6.x, vBulletin 3.5.x & vBulletin 3.0.x

vBSEO Google/Yahoo Sitemap Generator for vBulletin 3.5.x (Plugin) & vBulletin 3.0.x



vBulletin HOTM (Hack of the Month) Winner for November 2005!

Overview
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Note: This vBulletin plugin is fully vBSEO 2.3.1 compliant. If you are running vBSEO, please upgrade to vBSEO 2.3.1 or greater before installing.

A Google sitemap is basically one or more XML formatted files containing a list of your forum URLs - along with indicators such as priority and frequency for each URL.

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.

Priority indicates how important the page is relative to your other pages, while frequency indicates how often the page is expected to change its content.

The site map is retrieved from the root level of your website by Google (and by Yahoo for the text formatted version).

By transmitting your sitemap directly to Google, you enable GoogleBot to crawl your vBulletin forum more effectively and efficiently.

You automatically inform Google of all of the pages you want crawled as well as which pages are more important (higher priority) and which should be crawled more often (higher frequency).

For more information on Google Sitemaps:
https://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/docs/en/about.html

Yahoo also supports a basic text sitemap format with one URL per line. The Yahoo sitemap must be manually submitted to:
http://submit.search.yahoo.com/free/request/

Note: Google and Yahoo sitemaps are particularly important for sites with dynamic URLs containing query string and/or session ID information. Search engines are known to more effectively crawl static URLs. It is suggested that you run this sitemap plugin in conjunction with the vBulletin SEO plugin.

More of your forum pages indexed generally leads to more website visitors allowing you to grow your forum and generate increased revenues from affiliate programs and/or ad sales such as the Google Adsense program.

Providing Google and Yahoo sitemaps is an essential step towards improving your forums.

The "vBSEO Google/Yahoo Sitemap Generator" plugin provides a solution that allows your forum to be indexed faster, more completely, more effectively, and with less bandwidth consumption.


What does it do?
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• Auto-generates a Google XML sitemap for all of your specified forum URL types.
• 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 publically 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?
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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
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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.

Further Information
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1. Install instructions,
2. full settings descriptions,
3. Smart Frequency/Priority Details,
4. extra-urls.txt info,
5. cron info, and
6. revision history

Visit the official release thread for the vBSEO Google/Yahoo Sitemap Generator at vBulletin.org

Copyright & Licensing
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• vBSEO Google/Yahoo Sitemap Generator 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 Crawlability, Inc.