Sitemap Plugin doesn't seem to work

TKS · Post by **TKS** » Mon Apr 07, 2008 10:06 pm

So, I've had the sitemap plugin for quite sometime now....since circa 2006. The thing is, I never really cared to look if it was working, well, because i was #1 at google and had been for years. I was still #1 up until this year. Now I've traded in #1 for #2 a couple of times and regained the crown a couple of times.

I did a search for my blog on google and found that my sitemap wasn't being reflected:
http://www.google.com/search?source=ig& ... gle+Search

I have static pages that should give structure under the search result and it just isn't showing. Inside the settings of the sitemap plugin is the following:

http://www.google.com/webmasters/sitema ... sitemap=%s

Does this need updating? What is the %s really doing here? I've looked on webmaster tools for google and found the URL needs to be different but I'm not going to change it if I don't know what the %s does...can someone explain?

judebert · Post by **judebert** » Mon Apr 07, 2008 10:32 pm

The "%s" is replaced with the URL to your sitemap file.

For instance, if your sitemap can be located at

Code: Select all

http://yourblog.com/sitemap.xml.gz

then the URL you provided turns into:

Code: Select all

http://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/ping?sitemap=http://yourblog.com/sitemap.xml.gz

If you want to ping more than just Google, you add a second ping by inserting a ";" between the ping URLs.

TKS · Post by **TKS** » Thu Apr 17, 2008 5:24 pm

It's strange, because I've given my page a definitive hierarchal structure. I've got a contact.html page, an about.html page, a search.html page and even an archives page. However, when searching google, none of these are displayed as a normal sitemapped page would display them.

So, it leads me to believe that something is messed up with the plugin?

Post by **garvinhicking** » Fri Apr 18, 2008 10:08 am

Hi!

What does the google site tell you about your sitemap? That it is properly indexed?

Regards,
Garvin

TKS · Post by **TKS** » Fri Apr 18, 2008 4:37 pm

Well, it's getting my sitemap. I guess it's just odd that it doesn't give my page hierarchy in search results. I figured the various places I have on my blog (contact, search, about) would be indexed and show up:

Yet Another Linux Blog
Contact
Search
About

But I guess it's on google's end. I'll continue to look at it.

TKS · Post by **TKS** » Tue Jun 10, 2008 11:54 pm

As an example:

http://www.google.com/search?source=ig& ... gle+Search

Look at the first blog...it has various subpages displayed.

Mine has subpages as well but those aren't displayed in the search results. This is specifically what I'm looking at. I'm the #2 result there.

Post by **Don Chambers** » Wed Jun 11, 2008 1:46 am

Those "various subpages" are sitelinks. When I look at my google webmaster tools, this is what it says about sitelinks:

Sitelinks are additional links Google sometimes generates from site contents in order to help users navigate your site. Google generates these sitelinks periodically from your site's contents.

Because we generate sitelinks dynamically, this list can change from time to time.

[...]

Sitelinks are completely automated, and we show them only if we think they'll be useful to the user. If your site's structure doesn't allow our algorithms to find good sitelinks, or we don't think that the sitelinks are relevant to the user's query, we won't show them. However, we are always working to improve how we find and display sitelinks.

TKS · Post by **TKS** » Wed Jun 11, 2008 9:01 pm

So...something is preventing my static pages from being counted as subpages...

which makes search results less than convenient right? How can I fix this is the new question?

Post by **Don Chambers** » Wed Jun 11, 2008 11:15 pm

Your sitemap is here: http://linux-blog.org/sitemap.xml.gz

Your static pages are definitely listed there - toward the bottom. Your site also came up first today (2nd yesterday) when I clicked the link you first provided at the top of this thread.

Again - Google says those other links are sitelinks, which THEY generate dynamically, and automatically *IF* their algorithm decides to do so. I'm not sure there is anything you can do to force it to happen.

TKS · Post by **TKS** » Thu Jun 12, 2008 1:01 am

bah, that's crappy.

But thanks for the help anyway

Wolfdog · Post by **Wolfdog** » Mon Nov 17, 2008 9:53 am

I know this is an old post, however my issue is relevant.
The site map plugin is not properly working and I am unsure why.
My site map is here http://darkevil.net/blog/sitemap.xml its being created but with lots of errors. Any information would be helpful.

Post by **garvinhicking** » Mon Nov 17, 2008 12:41 pm

Hi Wolfdog!

Please update your google sitemap plugin, it is fixed in the latest version.

Regards,
Garvin

Wolfdog · Post by **Wolfdog** » Mon Nov 17, 2008 4:11 pm

Indeed, it has fixed the issue.
Thank you.

Sitemap Plugin doesn't seem to work

Sitemap Plugin doesn't seem to work

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