SEO

Hello. I'm new to all this sitemap stuff and i've been reading a few of the threads around here and well, though somewhat confused because of different suggestions for/from diffrent people, i was hoping to find out if my settings are all correct for my setup.

first. i want to clarify that my forum is in a subdirectory
Legion of Angels Forums

with that. here is my .htaccess file within that same directory

i mofidied 1 line to match that of a suggestion in another thread i found regarding robots.txt that mentioned that i should add forum/ over here

i also added an extra line i noticed he had just for the heck of it that wasn't in the original vbseo .htaccess

still not sure most of this does but if it works i dont' mind.


with that. i am just hoping someone could confirm everything is correct for me. i would greatly appreciate it.


with that. i would like to ask the following related questions.


1. when i click on the following link http://www.legionofangels.net/forum/sitemap_index.xml.gz from within the seoreports page within the admincp. what should i get? cause i get a blank page.

2. when i MANUALLY submit the above "sitemap" to google using their webmaster tools, which btw, does not exist in the ftp directory, what's supposed to happen is google reads the .htaccess file first and then goes to the real location that's within vbseo_sitemap/data?

because when i submit it manually, it says there is an error and gives me this error

3. i double checked permissions and have the following:

data folder is 777.
hits folder is 777
all the *.gz files (3 total) are 666
all the log files are 666
index.php is 644
.htaccess (the one that says deny all) is 644
and downloads.dat is 644

are these all correct?


4. what do you recommend i have for a .htaccess file for my root directory (not forum) if anything at all?

5. if i have a sitemap for my forums with the help of this, do i still need one, or is one recommended for my main page?

main page: Legion of Angels
forum: Legion of Angels Forums

5.a. and if i do, does the main page one still have to go as far as the forum? or can i make one that only stays within root so it's smaller? cause i tried using this site Create your Google Sitemap Online - XML Sitemaps and that thing took forever and i decided to just quit and not use it. it was scanning like every single forum page i have. O_o

6. which file is scanned first by crawlers, robots or .htaccess or sitemap?

6.a. cause if it's robots. does that mean i should have made a robots file BEFORE making a sitemap so that the sitemap generator skips over the the files i specified in robots? O_o

6.b. if so. could someone list for me the most common useless pages i can exclude from my forum? or any directory you think i should exclude that might pose a security risk? i'd very much appreciate that as i would like to completely redo my robots.txt especially since i might have to adjust it for the new url's that vbseo made which are nice and much shorter.


7. i only need ONE robots.txt file right? and it always goes to root right? (not forum root)

8. but i can have multiple .htaccess? do i have to or just if i wanted to? (one for root, one for forum root?)


9. i think i had more q's but i forgot. i'm sorry for having so many. i tried to find the answers to most of these in older threads but i kept getting mixed suggestions. some would say something. and others would have yet more to say. not neccisrily conflicting advice, but maybe. and i didn't know which to believe/follow.


thank you very much in advanced. i just wnna get rid of the doubts in my head so i can start making real progress, and not have so many questions next time i get stuck.

thanks again.

In your htaccess you have this:

RewriteRule ^((urllist|sitemap_).*\.(xml|txt)(\.gz)?)$ forum/vbseo_sitemap/vbseo_getsitemap.php?sitemap=$ 1 [L]

take the forum off of that line.

RewriteRule ^((urllist|sitemap_).*\.(xml|txt)(\.gz)?)$ vbseo_sitemap/vbseo_getsitemap.php?sitemap=$ 1 [L]

done and done! thanks.


/me will await the answers for the other q's.

1) I answered
2) What I told you should have fixed that
3) What I told you should have fixed that
4) I would add make your htaccess have at least this in it:

5) Would be good if you had a sitemap also for your main site. Reason being it threads http://mysite.com and http://www.mysite.com differently

5a) Stays within the root as long as you run the vbseo sitemap generator I believe

6) Not sure

7) Not sure on, I just use 1 directory, but assuming you should have 1 in main domain and 1 in forums

8) 1 .htaccess per folder. Should only really need 2 IMO

9) Yes alot of questions...lol

__________________
Michael Biddle / Crawlability Inc.
vBSEO 3.2.0 Launched - Maximum Overdrive for Your Web Traffic! Over 100 Instant SEO Optimizations

vBSEO Google Sitemap Generator - Version 2.2 Released Mandatory Upgrade for vBSEO 3.2.0 GOLD

6X Traffic - $1400 in One Day with vBSEO! Imagine What the vBSEO Patent Pending Technology Can Do For You.

ownage. gotta admit. didn't even test the link but i'm glad that little fix will fix most everything. and now that i am more reassured with the importance of those files, i don't have to worry so much anymore.

somtiems reading things here makes me think certain things are too important to neglect. and i hate worrying about it. so i needed to know "well, if they're so important, what about this and that? and what if i have 2? what should it have?" and so on and so forth.

well i'm less worried then. i could prolly just leave everything the way it is i guess. on no wait. i forgot i should prolly look over my robots file. i think someone posted theirs once. i'll prolly just copy them. O_o

thanks again. really appreciate it.