Product SiteMap.xml with CSVI Tutorial

[PRO]

Creating a product sitemap is easy if you have
Openoffice + CSVI
http://www.csvimproved.com/

Create a CSVI export file
Makes sure it has the product_url field.

Export.
!Important LOOK at the urls, and make sure they are the structure of your site.
FOR EXAMPLE,
If your main shop link is    /shop-online/
BUT, that item is not supposed to be in the url. You can use replacements in CSVI, or a "find and replace" in openoffice calc.


Add a column BEFORE the url column.
Paste this into the column.
<url><loc>

Then, you want to copy that all the way down to the end of the products.

Next add a column AFTER the url column.
past this
</loc></url>

COPY that all the way down.

NEXT, you have to concat the columns into 1

Create a 4th column.
Paste this into it
=CONCATENATE( A1; B1;C1 )
Hit Enter

NEXT,. you have to drag the formula all the way down to the bottom of the products.

NEXT,
Copy Concatenated Column.

Go into the 5th Column, and "right click, and choose "paste special"
On the "Paste Special Page"
UNCHECK "paste all"

Then, UNCHECK, "formulas"

Then click OK.

Now, your column should look like this

<url><loc> www.example.com</loc></url>

COPY that column,

Paste it into a notepad, or text editor file.

Paste this at the top
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

  <urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9">


THEN,

Paste this at the bottom
</urlset>


THEN, save the file as

.xml

Now your file is ready to upload to your site, and submit to google.

[lindapowers]

Hi Pro

Interesting post.

Better this method than Xmap or any other solution out there?

Why?

Thanks

[PRO]

Hi Pro

Interesting post.

Better this method than Xmap or any other solution out there?

Why?

Thanks

I have not tried xmap for products

This is what I use

[lindapowers]

Hi Pro, yep I ask it cause I have seen this commented several times in the forum as being the best method for creating a sitemap.

I read something that said that Xmap and other components don't index the images for products.

Regards

[CenturionSigns]

Possibly a stupid question, but can I have 2 sitemaps?  One created by xmap for content and one for products?  Call them different names and submit both to Google?

[jjk]

Possibly a stupid question, but can I have 2 sitemaps?  One created by xmap for content and one for products?  Call them different names and submit both to Google?

Yes, you can. Just reference your sitemaps in the robots.txt file.

[PRO]

Possibly a stupid question, but can I have 2 sitemaps?  One created by xmap for content and one for products?  Call them different names and submit both to Google?

yes, I do

[tampasounds]

Hi Pro

Interesting post.

Better this method than Xmap or any other solution out there?

Why?

Thanks

Um...XMap doesnt pick up my categories (even with the plugin)  so ....  yes its better imo
Thanks again Pro

[lindapowers]

categories in Xmap are picked if you create a categories menu item for VM.

The problem with Xmap comes in a multilingual website.

Actually I can't even get Xmap to show the XML in more than one sitemap (so in more than one language).

The CSVI option seems a good solution if your website is not adding content constantly or updating it so is not valid for us.

Seems having sitemaps for different languages was not as easy as we though and there is not much documentation online.

Regards

[Maxim Pishnyak]

hit with a big baseball bat that guy who didn't tell you wisely to not use core multilangual feature of VM - https://forum.virtuemart.net/index.php?topic=113438.msg382598#msg382598

using CSVI to adminster separate lingual VM installations definitely - https://forum.virtuemart.net/index.php?topic=113438.msg382769#msg382769

is more preferable then

to see that CSVI fails administer site maps for ONE multilingual online shop

Regards

[lindapowers]

hit with a big baseball bat that guy who didn't told you wisely to not use core multilangual feature of VM - https://forum.virtuemart.net/index.php?topic=113438.msg382598#msg382598

using CSVI to adminster separate lingual VM installations definitely - https://forum.virtuemart.net/index.php?topic=113438.msg382769#msg382769

is more preferable then

to see that CSVI fails administer site maps for ONE multilingual online shop

Regards

I really would like to understand one of your phrases but seems impossible.

I'm using VM core multilingual and works perefectly, you put me a link to meta keywords topic? dont get it.

I'm using Xmap to generate sitemaps, ONE sitemap for all languages where LANGUAGE AT URL defines each sitemap and works perfectly (even without including anything at .htaccess)

Sorry but don't get what you mean. When I wrote the post I was missinformed by all the posts of people having trouble to set up multilingual sitemaps on xmap, for me it works perfectly just by using the language tag at submited url.

Regards

[Maxim Pishnyak]

Oops, nice to hear that everything with sitemaps is ok. Just now I'm watching at your conversation with P2 Peter
https://forum.virtuemart.net/index.php?topic=113043.msg388017#msg388017

Btw it wasn't thread about meta keywords only.

Isn't easier to manage it all at one website?

Still I don't understand why it's so hard to manage multilingual websites which belong to one online shop project. With a help of CSVI ofc.
The point isn't what is easier. The point is what is better for SEO.

[lindapowers]

Oops, nice to hear that everything with sitemaps is ok. Just now I'm watching at your conversation with P2 Peter
https://forum.virtuemart.net/index.php?topic=113043.msg388017#msg388017

Btw it wasn't thread about meta keywords only.

Isn't easier to manage it all at one website?

Still I don't understand why it's so hard to manage multilingual websites which belong to one online shop project. With a help of CSVI ofc.
The point isn't what is easier. The point is what is better for SEO.

I still believe you are wrong with using a domain per language, why should that be better for SEO that using the language prefix? All your sites will be treated as independent websites which will require their own SEO staring from 0.

If you have a good site ranked in a language it will help you already adding the rest of the language text, ofc if the text is completely translated and you don't have duplicate content due to unstranslated pages.

But anyway not the topic of this post.

Regards

[Maxim Pishnyak]

Any time we could move to the thread about Meta keywords created by you. It's the only topic where discussion about multilingual seo was happened.

Also I'm feeling a bit alone there cos I posted in that thread two last posts and you didn't reply still.

All your sites will be treated as independent websites which will require their own SEO staring from 0.

SEO for one language part of project is based on the methods for choosen language only. In other words you wouldn't advertise french part of online shop at english web sites.

But French website is linked to English brother and vica versa. Isn't this not helpful at all?

If you have a good site ranked in a language it will help you already adding the rest of the language text...

What is better for SEO: have language flags to be linked to the mainpages or to the relevant translated pages? The usefullness of second option must to be more important than having own domen by each language part.

I still believe you are wrong...

Really I saw many times that web site subfolders ( /en /fr and other numerous non-language /prefixes) lose SEO battle vs web sites who have landing page equal to main page.

But it's me. You could have another experience.

Any time you could check how your project competitors with different prefixes are successful in google results for choosen language.

Regards

[GFORCE75]

So, roughly how long should it take for one of these site maps to be added effectively into the code assuming I use the non xmap version??  Looks pretty simple?