Manual creation of Google Sitemap in Magento
Most of you probably know this, but let’s define what the sitemaps are. Sitemaps are a simple way for site creators to give search engines the information about pages on their site that are available for public. Basically, those are just 1 or more XML files that lists URLs for a site along with additional meta informatio about each URL (like last update, how often it changes, its importance relevant to other pages). With this in mind, search engines can be more clever while crawling the site. Click here see how sitemap of this site looks like.
You will hear the term Google Sitemap a lot, but XML Schema for the Sitemap protocol is not related only to Google at all. It can be used in many places, but the most important is Google Webmaster Tools.
How do we create Google Sitemap in Magento?
1. Sitemap File Configuration
First we need to create sitemap file in Magento. This is basically pointer to tell Magento where to create sitemap file and how to name it. Log in to Magento Administration and go to:
Catalog -> Google Sitemap
Check to see if the sitemap file is already present. Lets assume we wish to create sitemap in the URL: http://www.yourstore.com/sitemap/sitemap.xml
To do it successfully,
- FTP to the server
- create sitemap folder
- chmod the folder to 777
On some servers, previous steps will not be required, but it is better to create the file first so that Magento can edit it.
Let’s go to Magento administration now and click on “Add Sitemap” button. Just insert the default values.
After this step, we just told Magento where to create sitemap file. It is not yet created.
2. Configure Sitemap
Sitemap can be configured from the interface System -> Configuration -> Catalog->Google Sitemap. If you are not sure what does it all mean, check XML Tag definitions section from “Sitemaps XML format” document.
3. Create Sitemap Manually
Looks like Magento folks were thinking that sitemap should only be created by a cron job. Yes, it can be done that way also. Be sure to read Wiki article How to Set Up a Cron Job to get familiar with it. If you are looking for manual creation, quit your search for “Create Sitemap” button. You will not find it. But there is a workaround. You can enter manual URL to execute sitemap creation:
http://www.yourstore.com/index.php/admin/sitemap/generate/sitemap_id/[ID of Sitemap from step 1]
Of course, replace the content with square brackets with actual Sitemap ID.
39 comments
very nice and great post was searching for this very long thanks for sharing such a useful information
keep it up
Wow this is very useful & knowledgeable post. i like this post. thanks for sharing with us.
Hello and thank you for that article.
My question is how can we make automatically various sitemaps for different type of pages, like for example a sitemap for the CMS pages, a sitemap for the products etc.? is that possible in magento or via a plugin?
Thank you.
I noticed that even after manually generating my sitemap that it has deleted CMS pages still on it. How can that be?
Fatal error: Class ‘Mage__Helper_Data’ not found error come when i am going to generate site map
When i do this “Unable to generate the sitemap.” appears. File permission set properly.
Thank you, very helpful
Thanks For This Post.
I helps me a lot to setup the sitemap of my website.
Solved my problem too. Thanks for the detailed explanation ans sharing your expertise with us !
Thanks Tomislav,
But, How to do the 3rd step.
i,e chmod the folder to 777
Hi I am confused please help me through.i have created sitemap/sitemap.xml with one url priority = 1.0. But when I click generate in catalog/google sitemap its gets set to original priority. How can we change priority for home page to 1 and rest to .5 ??
thank you!
it worked for me!
You need to set up a crown job for it yo be updated. Take a look at the documentation on the magneto site.
Does the XML sitemap generated by Magento updates automatically whenever we add new pages or products to the website? For example, in WordPress CMS, XML sitemap generated by a plugin automatically updates whenever a new page/post/category is added.
You should NEVER leave your folders with 777 permissions, it makes them writeable by the whole world.
Set it as 755
or ‘chmod 775 ‘ if the webserver needs to access your files through the group permissions, like some hosting providers.. but never EVERYONE write access… rwxrwxr-x is fine!
Do you know how to create different sitemaps with a different name for each one? it seems that magento only allows to name it “sitemaps” files to “sitemap.xml…. 🙁
thanks,
for the first step where i can find the “add sitemap” button in magento backend
thanks, it was exactly what I was looking for too, but how can I use scc to style it?
I was looking how to do a sitemap with my magento new website 🙂 Thank you for sharing your knowledge 😉
Fought with this for weeks till I stumbled across this solution. Thanks for putting it up. Much appreciated.
thank you for the details !
I want the same thing.. thanks a lot!!!!!!
Thank you so much for this guide. I overlooked the first part and could not figure out how to generate the sitemap, but now i have!
Thanks, I kept forgetting to set permissions to 777.
Princy: I don’t know if this got answers but the sitemap should automatically add your cms pages to the sitemap. Mine did anyways.
Can i add my magento CMS pages also to my sitemap.
Is there any way to include cms pages also through code ?
Thanks for the how-to. Worked perfectly. Thanks for contributing to the Mage community. Bookmarked the site 😉
Hello,
The Extended Sitmap extensions was released today
http://www.magentocommerce.com/extension/1977/extended-sitemap
It replaces the default Magento Google Sitemap functionality for auto generation of XML Site Map files with a more optimized and advanced functionality.
Also it allows you to display all of your existing Catalog Categories, Products, CMS Pages and additional configurable links with a hierarchical structure SEO optimized for web spiders.
Btw, thanks for the post. It really helps 🙂
Use this
$_def_cat = $_product->getData(‘default_category’);
Hi,
I want to separate my category and product web sitemap (not google sitemap).
http://www.mysite.com/catalog/seo_sitemap/category/
http://www.mysite.com/catalog/seo_sitemap/product/
The above both sitemap are created from the “/app/design/frontend/default/default/template/catalog/seo/sitemap.phtml” but I want to modify both the sitemap, so can we make two seprate files “category_sitemap.phtml and product_sitemap.phtml” so that both the sitemaps gets created from the different files. How can I do this?
And one more thing, on product sitemap I want a product attribute as
$_def_cat = $_item->getAttributeText(‘default_category’);
“default_category” I have created from admin panel.
But “default_category” attribute is not coming on this page. Can u please guide me how can i get the value of a product attribute on sitemap.
Thanks
Thank you, very usefull!
Hi Tela,
Yes, you can set up a cron job in the Magento administration. If you have trouble with it, you can occasionally recreate the sitemap using the steps above.
Thanks so much for the tip! Exactly what I was missing.
Now I have a question for the update of the sitemap. Do we need to manually set up a cron job like you refered to on step 3? Or is it enough to set up the cron in the admin?
Thanks for this post!
Thank you, the manual url was exactly what I was looking for. Now if there was a way to hide certain pages from the sitemap that would be awesome as well.
Thanks a bunch!! That was a very useful piece of info :).
Thanks for this short but useful and informative HOWTO. It’s always the small things one can overlook.
Creating a sitemap is a must do step in order to get the Google see you’re site clearer and faster.