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Baseball/Softball Team Management Software Site (In: I Want to Sell My Website)
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zaphod123
Joined: Apr 02, 2006
# Posts: 4
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Posted: 2006-May-25 19:20
Hi: Having done a search through this forum and so having used recommended sitemap generators like Xenu and Site Map Builder, I can't get a single generator to list all the pages in my directory, which is www.mydomain.edu/English/ I always get at best just the files in the top directory. Site Map Builder just gives me one item under "urls processed": www.mydomain.edu/English/ I am new to webmastering, and I suspect that I must be making some very foolish newbie mistake or assumption, but could someone please tell me what that error is? Thank you.
[ Message was edited by: bhartzer 05/25/2006 12:33 pm ]
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vg5518
Joined: May 28, 2002
# Posts: 218
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Posted: 2006-May-25 20:06
Hi,
I don't know how those software work, but I would think that the javascript navigation would be a problem since there are no links to follow on the page. Just a guess; I could be mistaken about that and how your software works.
I have a Google xml sitemap that lists all of the pages, but Google is not indexing them. Google's only indexing main categories which I had already listed in an html sitemap. I was better off before submitting the xml sitemap to Google. Does anyone think that the problem might be that I have an html sitemap (main categories only) as well as the xml sitemap (dynamically generated) that was submitted to Google over a month ago?
valerie
p.s. Sorry, didn't mean to hijack your thread.
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g1smd
Staff
Joined: Jul 28, 2002
# Posts: 10465
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Posted: 2006-May-25 20:37
If Xenu LinkSleuth cannot find all your pages, then neither can the search engine bots.
Fix your navigation so that it, and they, can.
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zaphod123
Joined: Apr 02, 2006
# Posts: 4
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Posted: 2006-May-25 20:48
Hi: How do I fix the navigation? On the web page it does exactly what it is supposed to do: it correctly links pages to each other with no fuss or muss. How do other pages that use js script manage to get indexed by search engines?
I am using SSI to include the navigation bar, which is located in a file called navigation.html. The navigation bar uses js. I wonder whether it is the js. or the SSI preventing the navigation from being easily seen?
Either way, as a newbie taking some (presumably also) expert advice in other forums, advice that directed me toward this software, I spent an enormous amount of time learning some CSS, some SSI, and the Xara Menu program that created the js. navbar. For example, I was very specifically advised that using this software would allow me to avoid the kinds of search engine problems that evidently arise with frames and Iframes, the format with which I began. I'm not really sure that I have much time left to create a new navbar solution that will work as well as the one that is already up. In other words, I don't want to throw out a ton of work because of this one hitch if the navigation may be saved by some alternate route.
Thank you.
[ Message was edited by: zaphod123 05/25/2006 12:58 pm ]
[ Message was edited by: zaphod123 05/25/2006 01:01 pm ]
[ Message was edited by: zaphod123 05/25/2006 01:06 pm ]
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vg5518
Joined: May 28, 2002
# Posts: 218
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Posted: 2006-May-25 21:09
Most search bots can't/don't follow anything in a javascript file.
It sounds like the only thing you can do is create a separate html sitemap manually. Just create an html page that lists all of the web pages as links and make sure that there is a link to the html sitemap on every page.
You need to think about your visitors though too. How will they get around your site if they have javascript disabled, which about 7-10% do. They'll have to go back and forth between the sitemap and your pages to get around, which is not user-friendly.
There are free scripts out there that use css lists for dropdown menus that are search engine friendly.
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zaphod123
Joined: Apr 02, 2006
# Posts: 4
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Posted: 2006-May-25 21:46
Thank you for the advice, Valerie. Can you (or anyone) answer the following--hopefully final--questions?
1. I notice that when I run Xenu LinkSleuth on the subfolders, all the urls come up just fine. Is there a problem, then, with simply submitting several separate automatically-generated sitemap.xml files to Google, each with the urls contained in one subfolder?
2. If I go the route you are suggesting, can I, instead of creating an html sitemap, create an xml sitemap with the complete list of site urls? I ask because Google seems to prefer xml sitemaps.
3. Does the manually-created sitemap have to have any specific form? Is it simply a list of urls? I ask because the various sitemap generators I tried seemed to have very specific ideas about how the urls should be presented.
4. Do the urls in the sitemap have to be in any particular order? Sorted alphabetically? Alphabetically by folder? By file type? Something else?
5. Is there a way to link every page back to the sitemap that is invisible to the viewer? Or does every page have to have a visible link that says "back to sitemap"?
6. A different workaround occurred to me and I wonder whether it is doable. Can I just put all the urls into a "comment" or some other invisible place in my index page for the search engine bots to read?
7. Can you give me an example of a website that offers a free CSS navigation script that you find particularly attractive and functional?
Thank you.
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g1smd
Staff
Joined: Jul 28, 2002
# Posts: 10465
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Posted: 2006-May-25 21:59
Don't do the "invisible text" thing. You will get banned.
If spidering works normallly from the subfolders onwards, then create a HTML sitemap page that is linked from your main index page that lists only those subfolders.
Having done that, recheck using LinkSleuth again.
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vg5518
Joined: May 28, 2002
# Posts: 218
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Posted: 2006-May-25 22:49
I haven't used this one yet myself, but I have taken a look at it and it looks very customizable.
www.seoconsultants.com/css/menus/tutorial/
[ Message was edited by: bhartzer 05/25/2006 03:50 pm ]
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galway
Joined: Apr 26, 2004
# Posts: 300
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Posted: 2006-May-26 13:16
I agree with G1, the simple solution is to draw the top tier pages into a site map and these will form the key to all your sub folders which as you say are interlinked ok.
A couple of points here, obviously the website has its main problem when you come in through the default page, this is not making the sub folders navigable to spiders. Therefore make the folders indexable from a seperate page (the site map) that is standard html.
Secondly there is no need to try and list all your internal pages on the sitemap, make it efficient and narrow down the options for spiders to ensure they index the most important pages regularly, and of course they are the top tier pages and subfolder top tiers.
In addition you need to get the sitemap link onto the homepage and other important pages, ensure and test that this link is easy to find and migrate through.
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zaphod123
Joined: Apr 02, 2006
# Posts: 4
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Posted: 2006-May-27 17:34
First, thank you all for the help. Looking through the suggestions, I finally opted to add some non-java links to the rest of my site on my index page. The sitemap generators now read the rest of the urls pretty easily.
When I have a sec I'll look into replacing the java navbar with a css or other navigation solution.
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