sitemap.xml

[Mark]

Anyone using this feature and how?

[cekman]

Is this a feature of 3DCart - or the sitmap you create yourself and submit?

[Mark]

the cart creates a sitemap for you, and updates it as you make changes. I just wondered how many use sitemaps and how to use them best for SEO. Also, is this used for a feed as well?

[ScribeTime]

I've used the one created by the cart and submitted it to Google via the Google Webmaster tools.

Cekman have you done this since switching your cart to 3dcart?
You talked about your rankings since switching. I know it's very helpful in getting Google to index your site's pages. The nice thing is that unlike using sitemaps created by outside Sitemap generators - the one created by the cart is updated like Mark said automatically and then in turn automatically uploaded if you've submitted to Google via their Webmaster tools.

For anyone not familiar here's a link for more info via Google:

http://www.google.com/support/webmas...er=40318&hl=en

Also maybe you've seen the post below, but it gives a little more information on sitemaps and product and category indexes that you can link from your homepage:

getting crawled by bots

[cekman]

Scribetime - yes I have submitted a site map to google.

However - can you point me to where 3DCart creates the sitemap for you? (if I'm understanding you right)

I looked through the knowledge base and found info on a product and category index - but I thought it said you should go to google to see about creating sitemap.xml??

Is there a place in the cart to generate it automatically? that would be very helpful.

Thanks!

[Mark]

http://www.your_domain.com/sitemap.xml is the one the cart creates

[cekman]

Mark,
That is the LOCATION of the sitemap that's created - but how does it get created? I had to go to google - find a service - submit my domain address and have it created for me - then I used FTP to move it to my main directory.

I would love to know how to have 3dcart do this for me so changes are easily made to the site map.

Thanks!

[Mark]

It's created automagically, I suppose. Just go to google base and choose add sitemap and put the location of your sitemap in. Then, every so often, go back to google and choose resubmit sitemap to let google know you have changed or updated your site map.

[cekman]

Wow - mine sure was created magically - you must have the touch! Have you actually viewed the file in FTP - does the modified date change?

Here's the text from the 3dcart knowledge base:

3DCart includes different options for adding a Sitemap to your website.

Product Index
[yourdomain]/product_index.asp

Category Index
[yourdomain]/category_index.asp

Dynamic Google Sitemap
http://www.yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml

Adding the Product and Category Index

Login to your Store Manager
Select SETTINGS > DESIGN > SITE CONTENT
Scroll down on the page to "Add a New Page "
Type the name of the page, you can use "Product Index", "Category Index", "Product Sitemap", etc. Click SUBMIT
Click CONTENT next to the newly added page.
Enter "product_index.asp" or "category_index.asp" under the LINK field.
Click SAVE CHANGES.

Google Sitemap

You can visit http://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/ to set up your Google Sitemap.

As far as I can tell - you need to provide the sitemap -

Question - for the product/category sitemap are you supposed to include the quotes in "product_index.asp" or do you just type product_index.asp ??

Does anyone know?

[Mark]

In google webmaster tools, just click add sitemap. Enter the url for your sitemap which is http://www.yourdomainname.com/sitemap.xml
That's all there is to it.
Google will view your sitemap online and check it within a few hours.


On the new page content, just put product_index.asp in the LINK field at the top.

For the product index or category, you don't even need to create a page unless you want to. The pages are there and you can link to them. On my site, in the footer I have href links to them. just link to href="product.asp" or category_index.asp or whatever they are called. works GREAT! adding a page content would probably help with crawlers though.