xmap 2.3.4 Joomla 2.5.16 and VM 2.x Still not indexing VM pages

[Dog_Guy]

Hi,

I searched for a fix on google and got the old thread from 120 days ago, and it auto suggested I should start a new thread.

Yes I will probably sign up to  the xmap maker forum, but it is just as likely that a solution may have been found here. OR at least answered quicker.

I have j2.5 because VM2.x doesnt work with j3.x  (so I was told).

xmap is supposed to be the best site map generator but following the directions it still does not index ANY VM pages.

GOOGLE says to make an xml sitemap, and I would like to get indexed fast and for google to be happy with me, that is why I am making an xml site map for them.

someone said that a work around would be to create another menu for my site, and have it on some page (not homepage) and have VM categories as the menu links.  Not sure if that would index every VM page

Does anyone have a better solution, or know if xmap is going to be fixed? Its doco says that it works with VM and I have turned the xmap VM component on.

The J extension directory says that xmap works with J2.5 and J3.x  but obviously not Vm2.x 

Any solutions???

[GJC Web Design]

Hi Bruce,

personally I find these heavy weight sitemap components a complete overkill unless you have a highly active new pages everyday type of site..

Google ain't stupid, it can follow your navigation structure in seconds and index your site .. imagine Amazon submitting sitemap.xml's?

As long as your've registered your site on Webmasters let Google get on with it - you can always see what it's indexed..

If you really want to submit a sitemap to Google (never felt the need personally - normally they are done with great gusto - then forgotten about and sit there for years with broken links.. ) just use an online generator  - edit it to what you want and send it to Google

http://www.auditmypc.com/xml-sitemap.asp  springs to mind

[lindapowers]

Yes that is what we do, a menu item for the categories and that way Xmap indexes everything fine. At least for us it works.

But I agree with GJC Web Design, google will index your pages sooner or later.

Regards

[WebStuff]

Just create one menu item of type Virtuemart -> Category Layout then in the "Select a Category" dropdown choose "Top Level Category" and call it Products or Shop or something like that and xmap should index all the products under that Menu Item.
Works for me anyway.

[GJC Web Design]

He already has these links on his sites - I know them...

[WebStuff]

Okay dumb question but I have to ask have you enabled the "Show Products?" option in the xmap virtuemart plugin?

[Dog_Guy]

Thank you,

GJC have been particularly helpful in updating my site (joomla and VM).

Normally I may not have bothered, but from an seo point of view, I have read in a few forums that Google may prefer your submission (perhaps they like you to play their games?). Since I have a g webmaster account, it seems silly not to use it. Plus the value of xmap is/was that you get auto updates of the xml and the html data. So in theory you don't need manual updating.

And yes, the VM plugin automatically had show products 'always' turned on.

I used the category settings for the hidden menu on both my sites to get the VM products listed, and fortunately only had about ten or so VM categories to set up, and yes both the xml and html now pick up my products. The ongoing issue seems to be when you have over ten products or a pagination, that xmap didnt count products after ten. Fortunately that is not an issue with my store at the moment.

Other people have complained that xmap is no longer supported, and some people were concerned that xmap was a security threat (caused their sites to get hacked) but that has not been confirmed.

I am just doing the best to clean up my site (new technology, auto sitemaps etc) Google outlines the value of submissions below:


GOOGLE CO Info:

"Sitemaps are particularly helpful if:

Your site has dynamic content.
Your site has pages that aren't easily discovered by Googlebot during the crawl process—for example, pages featuring rich AJAX or images.
Your site is new and has few links to it. (Googlebot crawls the web by following links from one page to another, so if your site isn't well linked, it may be hard for us to discover it.)
Your site has a large archive of content pages that are not well linked to each other, or are not linked at all.
Google doesn't guarantee that we'll crawl or index all of your URLs. However, we use the data in your Sitemap to learn about your site's structure, which will allow us to improve our crawler schedule and do a better job crawling your site in the future. In most cases, webmasters will benefit from Sitemap submission, and in no case will you be penalized for it."

[GJC Web Design]

Hi Bruce,

read where your coming from ..  if your happy with Xmap all good...

But I would still (as a kick off site map for Google in Webmasters ) have a look at an online one time sitemap maker

http://www.auditmypc.com/xml-sitemap.asp  springs to mind

this will find each and every page - you can then edit it to exactly what you want to tell Google .. and then submit it..

Leave it there a couple of months ... check what Google has indexed .. then change to the auto produced Xmap version

Cheers