Required: Sitemap as standard in next IPB release

[Readtt]

I hope we are all living in the same century , but sometimes it does not feel like this. To make a long story short , i converted a phpBB 3.0 forum to IPB and of course lost all google juice from this since all links indexed where no longer intact.

Perhaps not a big issue for a smaller forum but with a forum containing 72.000 posts and 6000 members it is a pain in the ass to not have the ability to with a help of a button (Sitemap Generation) fix this issue within the IPB Core.

Sure there is the IPB.SEO which I installed and uninstalled almost immediately because it did not created any sitemaps ( i can see i am not the only one with issues) and the rest of the content in IPB.SEO is *cough* bad to be gentle.

So my question (read requirement) for the next release, since you allready improved some SEO, to include a real Sitemap function once and for all.

If someone agrees with me feel free to post your thoughts here in order to push the IPB team to take a step from stoneage to "future"

Thanks

[pjfry]

The next release 3.4 will have IP.SEO included, also the sitemap feature!

See here:

Benny

[Charles]

Look how fast we did that for you! ;)

[Readtt]

The next release 3.4 will have IP.SEO included, also the sitemap feature!

See here:

http://community.inv...v-update-ipseo/

Benny

Look how fast we did that for you! ;)

Cheers guys! :sorcerer: Any chance you can answer as quickly on the question when v3.4 will be release ...because, you know what .. I KNOW this question cant have been asked anytime before :devil:

[Aiwa]

When it's ready TM

[Wolfie]

Look how fast we did that for you! ;)

You might need to do another one, I think he blinked so he missed the magic.

Cheers guys! :sorcerer: Any chance you can answer as quickly on the question when v3.4 will be release ...because, you know what .. I KNOW this question cant have been asked anytime before :devil:

When it's ready TM

What Aiwa meant to say was this...

When It's Ready™

To give you a rough idea though, since there haven't even been any public beta releases of 3.4, I wouldn't count on it being out before December, and that's not saying to look for it in December (most likely after December), only that it will be awhile.

Here's a breakdown of the process for you, based on my observations (your mileage may vary)... When the next version of IP.Board is complete or near complete, it will be in the alpha testing stage. In the past, IPS has sometimes provided a site for clients to visit to see/test the front end (doesn't always happen, so don't hold me to it). At some point in the development, IPS will install it on this community and then it will reach a point that it will be available to the QA team and then eventually betas will be available for all clients to download and test out (but with a disclaimer that it is NOT meant to be installed on a live community - I urge you to take that warning seriously, some people ignore it and regret it because it doesn't qualify for support).

If you're not interested in following the process that closely, then here's a simple rule of thumb to keep in mind: Before a version is available for clients to test though, as with point updates, you will see it being used on this community first.

I think it says a lot when a company is confident enough in it's own product to use it before expecting its clients to start using it. After all, how likely are you to trust a piece of software that the developing company won't even use? Not only that, but with the number of people using this community, any unforeseen bugs have a greater chance of being discovered and fixed before being available to the clients.

I do have a piece of advice about upgrades though. When a ".0" version becomes available, don't install it on your live community, at least not right away. Instead, do an upgrade using a development/test site using a backup copy of your live community. Then invite a select group of members to test it out and report any issues they find to you and the see if any of those issues have already been reported (and if not, report them yourself). A few days after the release, check the bug tracker and see if there are any bugs that you consider to be "deal breakers" for you. If there are, then wait for the next (.1) release. Before I do an upgrade regardless of the version (.0, .1, etc), I wait a few days and see if anyone reports any bugs that are serious or that have a possibility of affecting me. As the point versions progress, you'll usually notice fewer and fewer bugs reported (.0 could have, say, 200 reported and fixed, then .1 might have 150, .2 with 125, etc). Also, you'll usually notice that the times between the releases will either be the same or start taking longer (2 weeks, 3 weeks, a month, etc). Not always the case but is the usual pattern.

(Looks up.) Didn't mean for it to get this long, but I hope you find all of it useful. How things actually go will tend to vary each time, but should give you an idea of what to expect. Oh and, welcome to the IPS world, in the long run you'll be happy about switching over.

[Readtt]

can beta be downloaded somewhere? In december i will be on page 74 instead of all topics on page 1 in google due to the wrong redirects and no-go sitemap ?

[Aiwa]

A beta will be avaialble when IPS announces it.. i.e. 'When it's Ready^TM'.

You may see IP.SEO as poor, but it does generate the information you are after, a sitemap.

On conversion, you should have gotten 301 redirects for your topics so rankings would remain intact. If that didn't happen, I suggest you inquire about support in the converter forum on how to fix that issue.

[Rimi]

can beta be downloaded somewhere? In december i will be on page 74 instead of all topics on page 1 in google due to the wrong redirects and no-go sitemap ?

Oh please. There is no such thing as an seo modification that can bump you from page 74 to page 1. Sitemaps don't raise a topics ranking they submit the topic for indexing.

[Readtt]

I allready lost ALL juice from google within 14 days, if someone willing to help me I am more than willing to provide you with all info required to fix it as it sucks big time :(

[bfarber]

How long ago did you convert? It is somewhat normal for your site to get delisted, and then relisted, as the search engine drops the old URLs and starts indexing the new URLs.

Ultimately, if you have good content and haven't done anything out of the ordinary to harm the ability for spiders to index your site (e.g. accidentally block them), they will rank you appropriately as they start reindexing your entire site. Big changes take a few months for spiders to sort out in most cases.

[Wolfie]

I allready lost ALL juice from google within 14 days, if someone willing to help me I am more than willing to provide you with all info required to fix it as it sucks big time :(

How long ago did you convert? It is somewhat normal for your site to get delisted, and then relisted, as the search engine drops the old URLs and starts indexing the new URLs.

Exactly what bfarber said.

A lot of people convert to IP.Board (or upgrade from 1.x or 2.x to 3.x) and notice a huge drop in rankings, then within a few months their rankings not only return, but actually improve compared to what it was before. So you'll take a hit but you'll be better for it.

[sound]

a suggestion for the new sitemap

have two levels of indexing

one - latest posts indexing
designed to run say every 5-60 mins or so but only picking up new content
eg forums - lots of fresh content so index regular - latest 100 or what ever

two - full indexing
rest of forum/gallery/downloads - only indexed once per day

help avoid perfomance hits and so may allow sitemaps to be of greater size

[Readtt]

hi guys, it is possible that any IPB admin can help me generating the IP.SEO sitemap correctly ? It is urgent and highly appreciated

[Aiwa]

a suggestion for the new sitemap

have two levels of indexing

one - latest posts indexing

designed to run say every 5-60 mins or so but only picking up new content

eg forums - lots of fresh content so index regular - latest 100 or what ever

two - full indexing

rest of forum/gallery/downloads - only indexed once per day

help avoid perfomance hits and so may allow sitemaps to be of greater size

That sounds great and all, in theory... But what is the output going to look like? Will there be 2 site map files? If so, will crawlers even recognize a second file? If you're talking about just updating the existing sitemap file... You still have to load the 'huge' file to manipulate it.

[sound]

That sounds great and all, in theory... But what is the output going to look like? Will there be 2 site map files? If so, will crawlers even recognize a second file? If you're talking about just updating the existing sitemap file... You still have to load the 'huge' file to manipulate it.

the sitemap index sitemap.xml is just a index to all the other sitemaps generated,

it would update this root sitemap index file, which will then inform spiders which other sitemap file has been updated and point it to it

[Aiwa]

the sitemap index sitemap.xml is just a index to all the other sitemaps generated,

it would update this root sitemap index file, which will then inform spiders which other sitemap file has been updated and point it to it

:)

[Wolfie]

a suggestion for the new sitemap

have two levels of indexing

one - latest posts indexing

designed to run say every 5-60 mins or so but only picking up new content

eg forums - lots of fresh content so index regular - latest 100 or what ever

Sounds nice but there's no guarantee that search engines would honor it. Just because you notify a search engine that there's new content or that a sitemap has been updated doesn't mean that it's going to drop everything else it's doing to grab the content from your site. Also, do you know for a fact that it will accept smaller 'new content' files without discarding the older content that it's already indexed? (I'm being serious, I don't know myself if it does or not, so I'd be worried that it would think the new sitemap file is a copy of all content and that it would get rid of everything else it has indexed for me.) If it does allow 'new content only' sitemap files, then at most I'd say to do it in increments of 6/8/12 hours and not every hour or more. After all, how likely is it that the new content on your site is going to be the very thing that someone wants to find within the next 30 minutes of it being posted?

[Readtt]

The thing is that IP.SEO does not generate any sitemaps neither in tmp folders or root. I have also added a sitemap.xml in root CHMOD 777 but it remains empty.

[bfarber]

That is a support issue. Typically this means your server does not allow PHP to write files to the root directory, so you have to upload empty ones and chmod them 777. Please post in the support forums if you need help with the software and someone will surely assist.

[KevinMc]

Perhaps not a big issue for a smaller forum but with a forum containing 72.000 posts and 6000 members it is a pain in the ass to not have the ability to with a help of a button (Sitemap Generation) fix this issue within the IPB Core.

That's a small community. You make it sound like it's so big.

Sure there is the IPB.SEO which I installed and uninstalled almost immediately because it did not created any sitemaps ( i can see i am not the only one with issues) and the rest of the content in IPB.SEO is *cough* bad to be gentle.

That's not fair. The IP.SEO application DOES create sitemaps. You need to do your research in the support topic, just like everyone else did. It works and I'm using it.

For the developers...

If a sitemap generator is to be included in IP.Board 3.4, I would highly suggest that it give us the ability to define appropriate namespaces. IP.SEO does not give us that option and it's pretty useless for a site that publishes news articles. The idea of being able to use appropriate namespaces is most important. If Google doesn't know what kind of content is being submitted, it doesn't do any good. While the IP.SEO application works, that's about all it does; it creates a sitemap in its most simplistic form.

[Eric Allione]

The IP.SEO application DOES create sitemaps.

A few questions:

I have 3.3.4 and there definitely is a sitemap generation feature as well as a feature which automatically pings a few search engines, so I don't understand how this is being unveiled in 3.4. Will this upgrade have vital improvements? I got attached to my current skin and so I'm reluctant to follow future upgrades since I assume it will knock me back to the default IPB skin.

Another silly question that I want to double check: when I assign a site map priority to a category, 1.0 is "more" priority than 0.9 right? And if I assign forum category with a site map priority value, then all of its child forums and subforums inherit that priority?—unless assigned an individual value as an override?

Edit: I'm confused that after I submit a sitemap priority value that when I later go back to that tab, it doesn't show that the value registered. It just prompts me to ask if I want the default.

Feedback:

I don't know if there's a way to conduct upgrades that are "skin friendly" and prone to accept legacy skins or only require simple adjustments, but please keep that in mind for future upgrades. I don't think we can downgrade once we upgrade, so there's no real way to "test this". If there is a way to know that. If future upgrades are skin-friendly, then I will gladly subscribe to IPB for 50 years. But if not, then I'll probably just settle with my current version.

[Aiwa]

3.3.4 requires a free addon IP.SEO to generate sitemaps. 3.4 will have this addon built in.

With new versions, there are always going to be skin changes, the price of advancement.

Yes, you CAN test it. If you have a self hosted license you can have a test board with your skin on it and see what you need to do to make it compatible with the next version. There is even a tool built into the ACP that tells you the changes.

If you have a hosted community, I'm pretty sure you can get a demo and install your current skin on it and see what happens.

[Wolfie]

With new versions, there are always going to be skin changes, the price of advancement.

Just in case this sounds like it's bigger than it really is, when going from one 'major' release to another (3.0 to 3.1 to 3.2 etc) there will always be skin changes. Sometimes a lot and sometimes just a few. For 3.3 to 3.4, the skins will work and only need some updating.

[larryarrom]

Is it already released or not yet?