Aug 01 2007

Drupal - Node Links in XML Sitemap

Filed under: Content Management Systems » Drupal,

Tools:

Duplicate node links showing up in your sitemap?

As you probably already know, clean URL's provide a huge benefit when it comes to search engines spidering and indexing your pages. Clean URL's provide a semantic context by placing keywords in a link (such as /green-garden-tomatoes), as opposed to a cryptic combination such as /node.php?id=34x.

Drupal's pathauto module processes /node links into clean URL's. However, it's possible that XML sitemap picks up the links before pathauto has finished. This will result in all, or some, of your XML sitemap links being represented as /node, instead of the clean URL you were expecting. How to fix this?

Changing the weights of your modules

Update: Upgrading to the latest version of the xml sitemap module and pathauto module will automatically correct this issue.

You need to change the weight of your XML sitemap module so it falls below your pathauto module. By default, both modules carry weights of 0 (in a recent pathauto update pathauto is assigned a default weight of 1). Therefore, if you give XML sitemap a weight of 2 (heavier than pathauto), your links will be processed correctly. Note that you will need to go back and resave all your /node links after making this change so they are reprocessed. How to change the weights of the XML sitemap module? You can go directly into the system table and edit the XML sitemap entry, changing its weight from 0 to 2, or you can use Drupal's moduleweight module to do the job for you.

Updating Your Node Links

Note that once you have made the weight changes, you still need to reprocess the node links. Go to your sitemap, and edit and save all the URL's listed as node/x. This will reprocess them to their alias. It's not a bad idea to run cron (/cron.php) before you do this and to disable caching until you're done.

Tools:

Google is getting clobbered

Submitted by a visitor from afar on Thu, 2010-06-17 11:24.

Google is getting clobbered by Baidu in China, but then again, Baidu appears to be copying lots of Google methodologies, and reports indicate they're getting lots of searches for their mp3 links, which raise piracy concerns.

Wordpress rules

Submitted by a visitor from afar on Fri, 2010-02-26 17:04.

Wordpress has helped me so much, but I don't know if I like the whole Drupal idea. I don't really like it, I mean, you have to log in to leave a message and you can't leave links. Who would want one of those - some of us just like to speak our minds

Drupal is customizable

Submitted by cwd on Tue, 2010-03-02 11:08.

There's quite a bit of configuration you can do with Drupal, at least as much as you can do with Wordpress, although they have a solid system as well - primarily for blogging purposes.

With our website in particular we've decided to moderate comments to prevent spammy submissions. But in your own Drupal setup you can opt to let them through.

useful stuff, modrewrite for clean urls

Submitted by a visitor from afar on Mon, 2010-01-04 16:13.

Valid point, unless the urls are clean it's points that can be lost or gained with important keyword phrases to be indexed by the Google search bot. We mainly use php and modrewrite which does the same thing.

Regards
Dave Brett seo consultant and seo services manager

That was great to read

Submitted by a visitor from afar on Tue, 2009-11-17 18:15.

That was great to read your blog thanks for sharing that with me.

Daily Drupal updates

Submitted by a visitor from afar on Sat, 2009-07-11 00:34.

The daily updates are simply minor fixes. You don't need to constantly update (in fact, if you did, you'd probably not have time for anything else, depending on the number of modules you have installed.

Drupal more complicated than Wordpress?

Submitted by a visitor from afar on Mon, 2009-06-22 01:16.

I guess Drupal is more complicated than Wordpress. And Drupal has many more functions compared to Wordpress. I need to learn more about Drupal...

Constant XML sitemap updates

Submitted by a visitor from afar on Mon, 2009-06-15 03:32.

I don't quite understand why the XML sitemap is constantly being updated - do I really need to be applying these updates, or are my pages getting indexed and spidered with old versions of the module installed as well?

Updating Drupal modules

Submitted by cwd on Wed, 2009-06-17 07:47.

As a rule of thumb, if it ain't broke, don't fix it (unless of course it's screaming "security release" at you

Drupal vs. Wordpress?

Submitted by a visitor from afar on Sat, 2009-06-06 11:17.

Im starting to learn a lot about Wordpress and Drupal and trying to figure out the difference between the two and what is better. This is all new to me but I love researching it all!

XML Sitemap only for Google?

Submitted by a visitor from afar on Mon, 2009-06-01 04:40.

How important is it to feed our XML sitemap to search engines besides Google? Doesn't Google own the majority of the search market? In other words, am I wasting my time setting up accounts with Yahoo, MSN, etc.?

SEO Market Share

Submitted by cwd on Thu, 2009-06-04 10:42.

While Google does own the majority of the search market (close to 70% at latest estimates), Yahoo comes in close second with around 20%, and MSN and the others make up the rest. So about a third of the market is not Google - therefore I would definitely cater to Yahoo and MSN as well.

We've setup a separate site dedicated exclusively to search marketing - check it out at GuruofSearch.com

SEO for MSN is a waste of time

Submitted by a visitor from afar on Tue, 2009-11-03 18:36.

I can understand about Yahoo, but MSN to me is a waste of time if you are trying to optimize for it. I have several SEO optimized websites that are doing well with Google and Yahoo, but never with MSN. I even doubt if they currently have up to 5% of the market share.

Max

Bing

Submitted by cwd on Wed, 2009-11-04 10:29.

You're right, Google pretty much has the market cornered. It will be interesting to see what the latest figures on MSN's new search engine, Bing, are in the coming months.

At the same time, Google is getting clobbered by Baidu in China, but then again, Baidu appears to be copying lots of Google methodologies, and reports indicate they're getting lots of searches for their mp3 links, which raise piracy concerns.

XML Sitemap

Submitted by a visitor from afar on Fri, 2009-05-22 04:47.

Seems like they're constantly updating this module. I'm sticking with the current dev version for now. Sitemap appears to be working fine, and new pages are added (without the /node path) when I create them.

I have the sitemap set to update on cron runs - I find this works better as updates are being made far more frequently - especially when I'm approving comments one by one. I wouldn't want to piss off the search engines!

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