* Current version 1.6.4 (released 2 April 2009)
* Works with ExpressionEngine 1.6 and higher.

Concept

Sitemaps allow you to inform search engines about pages on your website that are available for crawling. A Sitemap is an XML file that lists URLs within your site, as well as additional information about each URL such as when it was last updated, how often its content changes and its priority within the site. The purpose of this is to help search engines to more intelligently crawl your website, with the ultimate aim of improving your pagerank.

Find out more about sitemaps at sitemaps.org

How It Works

The Sitemap Module consists of two parts - a module and an extension. The module allows you to select which weblogs to include in the sitemap and to set preferences for each weblog - its change frequency, priority and template. You can also add URLs to the sitemap and set their preferences.

The purpose of the extension is that every time an entry on your site is created or changed using the PUBLISH and EDIT tabs, several search engines are notified that your site content has changed. A Sitemap tab appears that allows you to select whether or not to notify the search engines. It is selected by default if you are creating a new entry. The search engines that are currently supported are Google, Yahoo, Ask.com, Moreover.com (the MSN search index) and Live.com.

You can use the following variables in the uls which will be parsed accordingly:

{url_title}, {entry_id}, {weblog_id}, {cat_id}, {cat_name}, {cat_url_title}
	

* If an entry is assigned to multiple categories then only the first category will be used in parsing

If your sitemaps are very large then you can define the start index and limit of the number of entries shown (Google's limit is 50,000). For example:

{exp:sitemap:get start="0" limit="10000"}
	

You can also define the start index and the limit in the url in the following way (since version 1.6.1, requires curl):

http://www.mysite.com/sitemap.php?start=0&limit=50000

http://www.mysite.com/sitemap.php?start=50000&limit=100000

http://www.mysite.com/sitemap.php?start=100000&limit=150000
	

This allows you to submit multiple sitemaps to Google and to use sitemap index files to group multiple sitemap files. Please ensure that you have version 1.6.1 of the module or later installed and that you have updated the sitemap.php file.

Installation

Download and unzip sitemap.zip, then follow the steps below:

1. Upload the sitemap folder to the system/modules folder
2. Upload lang.sitemap.php to the system/language/english folder
3. Upload ext.sitemap_pinger.php to the system/extensions folder
4. Create a template called sitemap and place the following line it: {exp:sitemap:get}
5. Upload sitemap.php to the root directory of your website and change the template variable in it
6. Install the Sitemap module (Control Panel -> Modules -> Install)
7. Enable the Sitemap_pinger extension (Control Panel -> Admin -> Utilities -> Extensions Manager -> Enable)
8. Set the sitemap preferences (Control Panel -> Modules -> Sitemap)
9. Use the links to submit your sitemap manually to Google and Yahoo

Updates

When updates become available, you can easily update the module and extension for free by downloading and then uploading the new files to the appropriate directory. Once you have uploaded the files, just go into the Sitemap Module from the control panel and the module will be automatically updated. Go into the extensions page and the extension will be automatically updated.

* This module will be updated for EE 2.0 once available for free

License

By purchasing the Sitemap Module you agree to the following conditions:

• One license grants the right to perform one installation of the Sitemap Module. Each additional installation requires an additional purchased license.
• You may not reproduce, distribute, sell or transfer the Sitemap Module, or portions thereof, to any third party.
• All copyright and proprietary notices within the Sitemap Module files must remain intact and unaltered.
• The Sitemap Module is provided "as is", without warranty of any kind.
• You assume all risk associated with the installation and use of the Sitemap Module.

Changelog

Version 1.6.4

• Fixed a bug caused by last update in which entries were shown multiple times if they were assigned to multiple categories

Version 1.6.3

• Added limit field to sql query
• Fixed update weblogs bug caused by last update

Version 1.6.2

• Added ability to change settings for site index page
• Added link to show/hide excluded locations and weblogs (thanks to Todd for the suggestion)

Version 1.6.1

• Added option for start and limit parameters to urls

Version 1.6

• Added variable parsing

Version 1.5

• Added start and limit parameters to allow for multiple sitemaps
• Added functionality to prevent expired entries from appearing in sitemap
• Optimised sql queries and reduced php memory requirements

Version 1.4.2

• Fixed a bug that was causing problems when checking for updates

Version 1.4.1

• Performs checks on the edit date to ensure lastmod is formatted correctly and fixes bad dates

Version 1.4

• Replaced template dropdown box with url input box
• Locations are now specific to individual sites (MSM compatible)
• Added confirmation box when deleting locations
• Sitemap pinger now ignores weblogs that are excluded from the sitemap
• Fixed a bug that was creating the link to the rendered sitemap with a missing slash
• Fixed a bug that was causing problems on some servers when installing the module

Version 1.3

• More template options added to template selection list
• Changed naming of status options for clarity
• Added a check to prevent sessions from being started more than once
• Fixed a bug that was causing the tab body of other extensions to be overridden
• Fixed a bug that was causing the first template of each group to not appear in template selection list

Version 1.2

• Fixed a bug that was causing double slashes to be added after site url in some cases
• Fixed a bug that was causing tabs put on the publish page by other extensions to be overridden (thanks to Leevi Graham)

Version 1.1

• Sitemap tab added to the publish and edit pages in the control panel, allowing you to select whether or not to send a sitemap ping to search engines
• Template group names added to template selection list (thanks to Victor Gutierrez for the suggestion)
• Fixed a bug in the extension that was causing errors when entries were being submitted from stand-alone entry forms