northwalesinks Posted November 5, 2013 Share Posted November 5, 2013 Hi All, Cubecart 5 i have been told their is sitemap built into it. Can anybody tell me where it is please. What is url for my website sitemap I am very greatful for all help this forum has keeps giving to me Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bsmither Posted November 6, 2013 Share Posted November 6, 2013 In admin, Maintenance, Rebuild tab, check the box for Rebuild Sitemap. The sitemap will be saved in the root folder of your store. Then you tell whoever you want to give the sitemap to where it is located. CubeCart will automatically tell Google where it is. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
northwalesinks Posted November 6, 2013 Author Share Posted November 6, 2013 Thank you Bsmither i knew you know answer to my question Thank you for your help !!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Iona Posted November 19, 2013 Share Posted November 19, 2013 I've read elsewhere on this forum that the sitemap created by cubecart isn't that great. It doesn't include images, video & news. So, would it be better to create one using external software? And if so, any recommendations of which one? The downside I suppose is that you'd need to create and submit a new sitemap every time you changed/added content to the site. So, going back to my cubecart sitemap, I've found it in mydomain/public_html/sitemap.xml.gz - so is this the address I need to submit? Or do I need to "extract" the file as read elsewhere? Many thanks, Iona Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Iona Posted November 19, 2013 Share Posted November 19, 2013 Also, when you say "CubeCart will automatically tell Google where it is" - do you know the average time for this to happen? I've just deleted an old site map from my Google Webmaster Tools account. There's no other site map in there, despite rebuilding the sitemap several times during the building of the site, and twice now since going live. But only went live last Friday! Just not sure how long it is supposed to take. Would I even see it in Webmaster Tools? I really need Google to understand us better!!!!(LOL)!!! - for years the spiders have been looking at our quiz questions (as our quiz files were not previously placed in a secure area above publi-html.) When I look at Google Index - Content Keywords, I get "film, name, word, car, dead" and so it goes on - complete nonsense! Despite having crawled our new site, these are still all listed. Any help will be much appreciated. Iona Iona Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dirty Butter Posted November 19, 2013 Share Posted November 19, 2013 Submit your sitemap location to Google Webmaster. Google will then "find" it on the schedule you set up. If you don't need to make any changes to the sitemap, you can submit the gz version. There is a commercial mod that has more flexibility. It sounds like you need to edit your robots file to Disallow some types of files or the folders they are in. I think there's also a place in Webmaster Tools to Exclude files/folders? from being crawled. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bsmither Posted November 19, 2013 Share Posted November 19, 2013 " 'CubeCart will automatically tell Google where it is' - do you know the average time for this to happen?" Immediately after the file is saved to the main folder of your store. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Iona Posted November 20, 2013 Share Posted November 20, 2013 Many thanks for your replies guys. The gz file didn't work for me - google didn't recognise it and I couldn't see any site map submitted by Cubecart. I've now gone with a solution provided by our hosting company (Havenswift Hosting) who will install a program by xml-sitemaps.com which will give us a map for the site, as well as one for images and eventually news (when we get a blog). The software is configured to run automatically by cron and will ping the major search engines each time a new sitemap file is available (once a week is the usual setting). Will also need to configure the robot.txt file to direct search engines to the correct sitemaps. Once I've submitted the first set of maps, I won't have to rebuild, or worry about it again! £20/year to maintain. List....tick! And perhaps finally, Google et al, will get to know us properly!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
northwalesinks Posted November 28, 2013 Author Share Posted November 28, 2013 default sitemap built into cubecart 5 i get this message This XML file does not appear to have any style information associated with it. The document tree is shown below. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bsmither Posted November 28, 2013 Share Posted November 28, 2013 That is the nature of XML files. It is a 'tree', or hierarchy, of information. How one chooses to display it is a separate concern. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
northwalesinks Posted November 28, 2013 Author Share Posted November 28, 2013 Thank you bsmither i though just to asked on this forum double checked Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
masterunix Posted November 28, 2013 Share Posted November 28, 2013 I prefer using the build in sitemap of Cubecart, because the shopping cart will understand the hierarchy better then an external tool. Even if Google Webmaster Tool doesn't show images being indexed it doesn't mean it is not cached in Google. Paid Sitemap generators are nothing more then a gimmick. From my experience as a webshop owner since 2008 we dont get better rankings or indexing with using expensive or great Sitemap tools. Cubecart has a great Sitemap generator and before Cubecart we had Opencart with a great build in generator from a third party. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
havenswift-hosting Posted December 7, 2013 Share Posted December 7, 2013 I prefer using the build in sitemap of Cubecart, because the shopping cart will understand the hierarchy better then an external tool. It is great that CubeCart now includes functionality to create a sitemap, as used properly it is better than not having anything but to say that it is better than external specialist software is just plain nonsense ! This is not putting down the CubeCart built in functionality in any way but some immediate and obvious differences between CubeCart's sitemap and the one we recommend (and there are plenty more reasons) The CubeCart sitemap has to be manually generated by the store owner - we have seen hundreds of sitemap files that are months or years old because the website owner forgot to regenerate it or was focusing on running their store rather than remembering to do technical stuff like this. The CubeCart version will only generate a sitemap for the store pages. If like many, you have a blog, a forum or any other software integrated with the store then these are not included. The CubeCart sitemap is purely an gzipped xml version for the store pages. If you want a nicely formatted version that can be used by your store visitors, or want one specifically for images, videos, news articles (all of which are MUCH easier indexes to get an improved ranking in) then you need specialist software. The software we recommend will also highlight any broken links which produce 404 errors, so these are easily identified and fixed. Search engines hate encountering 404 errors and will reduce crawling time. Even if Google Webmaster Tool doesn't show images being indexed it doesn't mean it is not cached in Google. Google "should" eventually find and index everything but if you use that argument for images, then why bother having a sitemap file at all and also why bother submitting them to the major search engines. The search engines love correctly formatted sitemap files as it makes the crawlers job much easier and consequently they are likely to crawl your site more deeply and more often. The more often they visit and the more pages that are crawled on each visit, the more chance you have of getting pages indexed and certainly indexed quicker. New content that is indexed quicker than your competitors will by definition "rank" better. Paid Sitemap generators are nothing more then a gimmick. From my experience as a webshop owner since 2008 we dont get better rankings or indexing with using expensive or great Sitemap tools. Cubecart has a great Sitemap generator and before Cubecart we had Opencart with a great build in generator from a third party. Who said anything about expensive and why is having a lot of additional functionality considered a gimmick ?? You by all means carry on using the built in version and it is great that it is included, but you cannot make the claims you are without a better understanding of sitemap files and the way that search engine crawlers work Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
masterunix Posted December 7, 2013 Share Posted December 7, 2013 @havenswift hosting The answer is very simple: the search engine index your page or not ... if you use a free tool or buy an expensive tool ... this doesn't give you the guarantee that your site or pages will be indexed. Most of the third party tools are just ways to make money ... yes it is handy they provide the option to create sitemaps if you don't understand sitemaps or if you'r software doesn't provide sitemaps out of the box, but in this case (just like any shopping cart) if your admin provide sitemap out of the box, then buying a third party sitemap generator is wasting money. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
havenswift-hosting Posted December 7, 2013 Share Posted December 7, 2013 The answer is very simple: the search engine index your page or not ... if you use a free tool or buy an expensive tool ... this doesn't give you the guarantee that your site or pages will be indexed. I never said there was any guarantee about getting pages indexed so unsure where you get this from ! However, you obviously didnt read any of the above reply regarding the differences and the benefits or you are simply choosing to ignore them ! If you have issues with specific points then make your argument rather than making generalised negative statements Most of the third party tools are just ways to make money ... yes it is handy they provide the option to create sitemaps if you don't understand sitemaps or if you'r software doesn't provide sitemaps out of the box, but in this case (just like any shopping cart) if your admin provide sitemap out of the box, then buying a third party sitemap generator is wasting money. It is fine for you to keep using the built in one if you wish and let people use a superior tool when they appreciate the differences and the benefits Ian Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dirty Butter Posted December 7, 2013 Share Posted December 7, 2013 The CubeCart sitemap has to be manually generated by the store owner - we have seen hundreds of sitemap files that are months or years old because the website owner forgot to regenerate it or was focusing on running their store rather than remembering to do technical stuff like this. There is a date built into the code for each entry in the sitemap. We use TheFind as a way to promote our products, and if I don't export our feed to them at least weekly they drop our items from the site until I update. Google won't remind you, but TheFind sends an email if you prefer. So I rebuild my sitemaps and export my products at least weekly. That keeps the datestamps "fresh" and may be part of the reason we show well in searches. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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