The development team is considering adding sitemap in future versions.
There is already a sitemap mod (http://custom.simplemachines.org/mods/index.php?mod=755) available, but we would like to hear your opinions about adding this as standard feature.
What do you all think?
Meh I dunno. Never used one, so I don't care :P
Current mode covers basic needs but if you go into SEO you need more details like this board need .7 this need .4 this is archive board so put .1 etc... If team wants to add sitemap to core they need to do something covers all needs.
Well, what do you consider "all needs"?
and please explain what you mean by .7, .4, .1...
There is priorities in Sitemap, (SD's sitemap has basic priority settings) but there must be some settings like give X priority to this board (priority based on % but you can also call it 0.1)
%10 = 0.1 to %100 = 1.0 also maybe topic priority based on
is Hot - is locked - is sticky
if hot gets %x more priority | if locked gets %x less priority | if sticky gets %x more priority etc...
In other words, sitemap also lets webmaster to inform search engines that which pages to visit often and which pages to ignore, eg. visit to a single topic daily is not necessary however, particular modes need to be indexed every few hours as it get lots of new topics.
In WP, there is sitemap plugin which allows same.. so as Antes says, should have option to set priority, should be easy, its like appending custom values in xml of sitemap.
I would like to suggest that every board should have its own sitemap,so that sitemap can be divided easily.
I don't agree with this. Forums don't need site maps. A forum is a sitemap, and should even be designed that way.
A website can do good even without a sitemap but including sitemap is good idea, search engine giant like Google, Yahoo , Bing.. now all use common format. .ie. xml sitemap. It is small but can be good feature.
I would love to see a sitemap built into SMF in the future. I always install the sitemap mod and considers it almost a must have, so bulding that functionality in the SMF core seems like a very good idea.
I agree, I would like to see a sitemap as standard functionality, maybe not to link all topics(maybe optional if this is added) but at minimum its would list all boards and child boards that are visible to guests. Also maybe add a variable to the board create/modify page so that you can give that board a priority for the sitemap.
Sitemap integration is a welcome idea. I support it 100%.
Sitemaps are important, even for forums. I wrote a php one for my SMF in a few hours. For my previous forum, based on YaBB, my sitemaps took ages to write ;D
It would be nice to see this as a default feature.
I think anything to enhance the SEO features of SMF is needed. :) I would use it!
I think it'd be mere bloat.
If a site is just an SMF forum and nothing else, it'll be totally superflous.
I suspect that the majority of SMF forum sites are just the forum.
So, forcing the majority to have it is, from where I see it, wrong.
SMF should attempt to be as lean'n'mean as it can be.
Yeah maybe your right... I mean all the other forum software is enhancing their SEO features, why should SMF do that! It would be too modern of them... lol
meh.... you mean "All the other forum software is adding crap to what people THINK is SEO"
What do you think is SEO anyway? Certainly not URLs (nope)...
:D I just had to mouth a bit... I know SEO isn't just about URLs or Site Maps. I just think it would be a good "optional" feature.
Quote from: K@ on October 25, 2011, 01:45:45 PM
I think it'd be mere bloat.
If a site is just an SMF forum and nothing else, it'll be totally superflous.
I suspect that the majority of SMF forum sites are just the forum.
So, forcing the majority to have it is, from where I see it, wrong.
SMF should attempt to be as lean'n'mean as it can be.
I agree - those who want it can write their own (php is dead easy, never used php before, and had a working sitemap up in hours) or use a premade mod.
SMF should concentrate on its core functionality, the forum :)
Can you folks - those who would like to see this feature in SMF - please point out to me what does your sitemap contain, or what do you think it will usually contain?
Quote from: ziycon on October 06, 2011, 05:27:19 AM
I agree, I would like to see a sitemap as standard functionality, maybe not to link all topics(maybe optional if this is added) but at minimum its would list all boards and child boards that are visible to guests. Also maybe add a variable to the board create/modify page so that you can give that board a priority for the sitemap.
This is the board index page though.
I admit I don't see why a sitemap should belong in SMF - meaning in a
forum package, although I can understand why it is good to have a fully grown site (with a forum and other pages or even software). It is indeed good to have when you have a number of additional pages. Am I missing something?
Quote from: Norv on November 07, 2011, 06:48:38 AM
Can you folks - those who would like to see this feature in SMF - please point out to me what does your sitemap contain, or what do you think it will usually contain?
Quote from: ziycon on October 06, 2011, 05:27:19 AM
I agree, I would like to see a sitemap as standard functionality, maybe not to link all topics(maybe optional if this is added) but at minimum its would list all boards and child boards that are visible to guests. Also maybe add a variable to the board create/modify page so that you can give that board a priority for the sitemap.
This is the board index page though.
I admit I don't see why a sitemap should belong in SMF - meaning in a forum package, although I can understand why it is good to have a fully grown site (with a forum and other pages or even software). It is indeed good to have when you have a number of additional pages. Am I missing something?
I understand that this is only information on the board index but it might be a case that someone might only want/require the boards to be in the sitemap, if they have thousands of topics that can make for a very big sitemap, depending on how many times a search engine downloads or crawls the sitemap it could take a big lump of bandwidth.
I kinda understand why people might not want the sitemap due to it only listing forum pages and if the forum was integrated to a site it wouldn't accommodate for these outside pages.
I agree, nice :)
I support the sitemap to be default feature of SMF but can be enable or disable from admin panel. If you need it, enable it; if you don't need, then disable it. Simple!
Agree... sitemap should be there but the URL of sitemap should be SEO friendly..
Current sitemap url is <Forum Url/>index.php?action=sitemap;xml which is acceptable for google.. but not for aks and bing
ask and bing only accept in <Forum URL>/sitemap.xml url for sitemap... hope you have got me
An xml sitemap is very useful. A normal sitemap is about as useful as a flag as a parachute.
Quote from: InfoStrides on April 16, 2012, 05:00:12 AM
I support the sitemap to be default feature of SMF but can be enable or disable from admin panel. If you need it, enable it; if you don't need, then disable it. Simple!
Why do you support it?
Quote from: Antechinus on April 22, 2012, 04:40:31 PM
Quote from: InfoStrides on April 16, 2012, 05:00:12 AM
I support the sitemap to be default feature of SMF but can be enable or disable from admin panel. If you need it, enable it; if you don't need, then disable it. Simple!
Why do you support it?
I support the idea but only gave the clause to satisfy the need of those that may not need it. There are several features in SMF that some people do not use while some use them. Personally, I need the feature.
then why not leave it as a mod? If you need it plug it in...
I think the argument is to have it bundled conveniently with it so it is no more effort than turning on a core feature is currently. Mind you we all know how intuitive that idea turned out to be...
Personally it would make sense to leave it as a plugin or mod.
If you decide to do this core please don't include those useless HTML sitemaps that some developers pass off like a sitemap a search engine will really find useful. The only useful sitemap to a search engine is a XML sitemap, anything else is just wasting time and resources.
Although one may not help your rankings it makes it easier for search engines to find new stuff to index and IMHO get a link listed allot faster than traditional crawling alone.
To those who supporting argument is because the sitemap would be for the forum only, well have you heard of sitemap linking? You can have a main sitemap which contents contain other sitemaps. If sitemap linking is not for you did you know you can specify multiple sitemaps in your robots.txt?
So if I had to do a supporting argument I can compare it to RSS feeds which I don't use and SMF already has, so why not a XML sitemap. ;D
In a sitemap you have to indicate the relative importance of pages to each other, how do you indicate the relative priority in a forum, exactly?
I know what I've seen done (by SlammedDime's mod) but it doesn't seem like it'd really solve the problem...
Priority is not important, you can make a sitemap without it and it will be just as good to search engines. What really needs to be focused on is the required parameters because the non-required ones are not as important. If a accurate system can not be made for the parameter and its optional then it should be dropped.
Sitemaps is a great idea for large forums with many custom pages added. But I only saw a few of them ever.
Mod material? Yeah.
Official mod? Pointless.
Personally, I've only clicked a sitemap on a homepage a few times, and they didn't give me the info I wanted and didn't bring me where I wanted anyway.
Besides, SMF already has a sitemap build in. It's called the top menu and you can add links there as you whish (you never thought of that, huh).
I'm inclined to agree. See Aky, I do agree with you sometimes. :D
I have the existing sitemap mod installed, but honestly I don't think it's much use. I may not keep it when I upgrade the site. Better to just have a custom FAQ page and a few handy links.
Quote from: Antechinus on November 15, 2012, 08:56:37 PM
I'm inclined to agree. See Aky, I do agree with you sometimes. :D
(https://www.simplemachines.org/community/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fdreams.qwriting.org%2Ffiles%2F2010%2F05%2Fcelebration6_2.jpg&hash=b2a8a3a6f05a8d324c979217882282cbc67444db)
:P :laugh:
Don't worry. It wont last.
Quote from: Antechinus on November 15, 2012, 09:08:13 PM
Don't worry. It wont last.
What does that mean? That you will disagree with me tomorrow about the sitemap mod? :P
I'll disagree with you about anything, just to keep in practice.
A custom oop API that can handle several formats such as json, yaml or any other fancy data serialization format can be used to add a compatible format for a sitemap, just a matter of adding a child class file and its corresponding template file of course.