Generating a "Google sitemap"

From phpCMS

[edit] Automatically generating a "Google sitemap"

To automatically generate a "Google sitemap" with phpCMS proceed as follows:

1. Write an additional menu template in the existing .mtpl file:

; Google sitemap (main menu level):
{GOOGLE.PRE}
{GOOGLE.NORMAL}
<url>
  <loc>http://domain.tld{LINK}</loc>
  <priority>1</priority>
</url>{MENU NAME="SUB1" MENTEMP="GOOGLESUB1" PARENTCLASS="{CLASS}"}
{GOOGLE.AKTIV}
<url>
  <loc>http://domain.tld{LINK}</loc>
  <priority>1</priority>
</url>{MENU NAME="SUB1" MENTEMP="GOOGLESUB1"}
{GOOGLE.PAST}

; Google sitemap (1st sub-menu level):
{GOOGLESUB1.PRE}
{GOOGLESUB1.NORMAL}
<url>
  <loc>http://domain.tld{LINK}</loc>
  <priority>0.8</priority>
</url>{MENU NAME="SUB2" MENTEMP="GOOGLESUB2" PARENTCLASS="{CLASS}"}
{GOOGLESUB1.AKTIV}
<url>
  <loc>http://domain.tld{LINK}</loc>
  <priority>0.8</priority>
</url>{MENU NAME="SUB2" MENTEMP="GOOGLESUB2"}
{GOOGLESUB1.PAST}

; Google sitemap (2nd (lowest) sub-menu level):
{GOOGLESUB2.PRE}
{GOOGLESUB2.NORMAL}
<url>
  <loc>http://domain.tld{LINK}</loc>
  <priority>0.4</priority>
</url>
{GOOGLESUB2.AKTIV}
<url>
  <loc>http://domain.tld{LINK}</loc>
  <priority>0.4</priority>
</url>
{GOOGLESUB2.PAST}

In the exmaple above

• "domain.tld" should be replaced by the domain name of the website to be submitted
• "SUB1" and "SUB2" should be replaced by the real names for the sub-menus

2. Create a new template file for the "Google sitemap" called "google_sitemap.tpl":

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<urlset
  xmlns="http://www.google.com/schemas/sitemap/0.84"
  xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
  xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.google.com/schemas/sitemap/0.84
                      http://www.google.com/schemas/sitemap/0.84/sitemap.xsd">
{MENU NAME="MAIN" MENTEMP="GOOGLE"}
</urlset>

3. Create an Apache Rewrite Rule using .htaccess and mod_rewrite to wrap the /sitemap.xml call from Google to the parser:

# Rewrite Engine "on"
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /

RewriteRule sitemap.xml /index.htm?template=/templates/google_sitemap.tpl 

4. Calling the URL /sitemap.xml in a web browser, one should see in the source code a XML-formatted sitemap for Google.

Unfortunately one cannot define that phpCMS should deliver this file with the content-type of a XML-file, but apparently Google ignores such things, as sitemaps created like described above have already been accepted by Google.

Based on an entry by Martin Jahn in the phpCMS support forum