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extended 'sitemap-extended' plugin

frankm Member
in Plugins
hi,

lots of people have been wondering if we can improve the indexing of our images when using zenphoto. well so far, looks like we don't have much answers. anyway i found out that Google has recently introduced an extension to the regular XML sitemap format with the purpose of giving Google more information about images on a site. they claim it will help find images that could otherwise be hidden in javascript scripts (or flash slideshows, i guess). the extended format uses tags such as <image:title>, <image:license> or <image:geo_location>. note that if we use such tags, the sitemap output might not be usable by other search engines such as yahoo or bing.

anyway i have modified the sitemap-extended plugin to allow (if one wishes) this new google 'formatting'. before releasing it, i would like someone to check it. also this is not a 100% 3rd party plugin since i had to modify the sitemap.php file in the root folder to include a new namespace entry in the xml file header.

@acrylian, would you mind having a look if i email you the new plugin and the modified sitemap.php file ?

thanks,
frank.

Comments

  • acrylian Administrator, Developer
    The sitemap follows the official standard from sitemaps. org. So this is a Google specific extension? Do you have a link to that?

    Adding the title part might be a no problem but what should go with the license and the geo_location? We have no values for that or do you imagine those as options like the "monthly" etc ones?

    You may open a ticket and attach your modificated file.
  • frankm Member
    hi,

    you can find more about the google specs there.

    looks like all tag are ascii tags that have to be given by us. so getTitle(), getLocation() [or a mix of getCity(), getState(), getCountry()] functions can be used to fill in what is needed. the license tag must refer to a URL where your images license is stated.

    now, this sounds stupid but where do i open a ticket (first timer !!)
    frank
  • acrylian Administrator, Developer
    I will take a look at that specs. Maybe we can make those optional.

    Click on the bugtracker link on the top right. You need to register and then you can create new tickets.
  • frankm Member
    the ticket has been created.
  • acrylian Administrator, Developer
    Thanks, from a quick look that seems possible to add that. I will review the specs first Especially important what other search engines do, ignore or error, if the latter I am not sure if it really makes sense to add it. Making two separate sitemaps version is overhead I think.

    Anyway, I suggest to move the discussion from now on to the ticket itself.
  • reneesanguinetti Member
    Hello,

    I read this post a few days ago and went to look at the ticket:

    google has released new specs for sitemap files to allow their bots to have better access to images in a site (especially those hidden in javascript scripts). i have modified the sitemap-extended plugin to allow this 'google' formatting of the xml file. i had also to modify the sitemap.php file in order to include the new namespace (defining the image tags) in the xml file header.

    the 2 files are attached to this ticket for you to review.

    I was wondering if this is a plugin that is available to use or is it still being tested?

    Thank-you! - Renee
  • acrylian Administrator, Developer
    The sitemap-extended plugin is an official one and therefore included. The special google image stuff has not been added yet to the official that just follows the "official" sitemap.org standard. I have not decided if I will add that to the official one. If maybe for 1.3.2.
  • reneesanguinetti Member
    Hello,
    I have a question about the new “sitemap-google” plugin. I downloaded the files from ticket #1599; both the “sitemap-google.php” and the modified “sitemap.php”. Then tried them out using Zenphoto version 1.3.1.1 [5816] (Official Build) and Current gallery theme: zpFocus13. I liked the results, but I am a little confused. In Google Webmasters Tools this is their structure for a sitemap with images:
    <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
    <urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9"
    xmlns:image="http://www.google.com/schemas/sitemap-image/1.1">
    <url>
    <loc>http://example.com/sample.html</loc&gt;
    <image:image>
    <image:loc>http://example.com/image.jpg</image:loc&gt;
    </image:image>
    <image:image>
    <image:loc>http://example.com/photo.jpg</image:loc&gt;
    </image:image>
    </url>
    </urlset>

    My sitemap follows that structure, but this part “<image:loc> http://www.vintage-electronics-ads.com/bose-stereo/bose-stereo-11.jpg.php” is the url I get for my images which is also the url for the album pages.
    I went to the Google forum and a top contributor said this is what my sitemap should refer to for the image url:
    “You can only use whatever is found in <img src="...."> tags.”
    So this gets added to the image sitemap, and the page location for this is http://www.vintage-electronics-ads.com/bose-stereo/bose-stereo-11.jpg.php”
    Also, I experimented with a sitemap generator and it also created image urls like these:

    <img src="/cache/arvin-electronics/arvin-electronics-3_160_thumb.jpg" (album thumbnails on gallery pages)

    <img src="/cache/bsr-electronics/bsr-electronics-4_w120_h160_cw120_ch160.jpg" (image thumbnails on album pages)

    <img src="/zp-core/i.php?a=bsr-electronics&i=bsr-electronics-2.jpg&s=600&cw=&ch=&q=85" (image on image pages)

    Is there a way for the php script to add the urls like the example above?

    I would like to see if this would work because my gallery is getting indexed but so far no images.

    By the way, the sitemap generator is manual and complicated; that is why I really like the auto sitemap with the plugins.

    Thank-you! - Renee
  • acrylian Administrator, Developer
    “You can only use whatever is found in <img src="...."> tags.” and not the full `image` tag which is what the sitemap-extended plugin does.

    At least the official one modified by me with that Google image extension currently in the svn/nightlies.
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