Technical documentation - Site map for search engines
It is possible to generate site maps which search engines may use to index the site. Site maps may contain parts, part assemblies, catalogues and documents.
Site map generation is available in version 5.1 and later.
Ensure to have site map and SEO settings disabled on test sites, not to have test sites indexed. It is not good for getting high rank and may create unwanted traffic to test sites.
Instructions
How the site map is generated and its content is configured in profile.confing. The generation of the site map is triggered once a controller is called, and the result will be a set of site map files located on disk.
The site map will contain an index site map which points out site map for each presentation type in the configuration. Each presentation will have a link for each language. If a site map for a presentation contains more than 50000 links, that site map will be splitted into several site maps.
Configuration in profile.config
<SitemapProvider>
<!-- Generated site maps will be stored at this location. -->
<SignifikantSitemapProvider file-directory="D:\Signifikant\SiteMap\">
<!-- Site map will use the below base url when generating all links. Cross check site map generation so that links apprear correctly after finishing configuration. -->
<BaseUrl>https://www.mysite.com/AssertWeb/</BaseUrl>
<!-- In the site map include the following information. The priority us an indication to the search engine how to treat the information.
Use higher priority for the information you want to prioritize the most. -->
<PresentationTypes>
<PresentationType base-type="Catalogue" priority="1"/>
<PresentationType base-type="Part" code="Part" priority="0.6"/>
<PresentationType base-type="PartAssembly" code="Kit" priority="1"/>
</PresentationTypes>
<!-- Indicate to the search engine how often the site map is re-generated. -->
<ChangeFrequency>monthly</ChangeFrequency>
</SignifikantSitemapProvider>
</SitemapProvider>The included presentations are defined by the base-type and code. Configuration <PresentationType base-type="Catalogue" priority="0.6"/> will include all presentations which have base-type Catalogue. Configuration <PresentationType base-type="PartAssembly" code="Kit" priority="1">will include only the part assemblies which have the code Kit.
ChangeFrequency
Change frequency tells the search engine how often page content is updated. Change frequency is an estimate but sometimes page content can be changed due publishing of new information. Each time publish is completed, is potentially a reason to send the ping command to Google for updating to the new version of the sitemap.
Valid options for change frequency are always, hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, yearly, never
Generating a site map
Site map is generated once the Url for sitemap is requested by browser. There are two options; one to generate site map and the other to re-generate site map and ping google which is a request to google to update sitemap in their system.
Method | URL | Description |
|---|---|---|
Generate sitemap | Method will generate a site map. The result is placed in files located according to the configuration. | |
Generate sitemap and ping Google | Method will generate a site map. The result is placed in files located according to the configuration. Once site map is generated function will ping Google that the new site map us available by calling Google ping:
|
APIs are protected using authentication, see this article: Technical documentation - Signifikant REST API authentication .
Automatic creation of site map
Publish will generate a site map automatically for the sites where sitemap is configured and ping Google when publish is completed.
Note that Google clearly states not to submit new versions if site maps if content is not changed.
“You should ping Google about a sitemap only when it's new or updated; do not submit or ping unchanged sitemaps multiple times.“