Simple Machine Forum Sitemap and How to Create One

Okay!!! Do you know that it is hard and takes a lot of time for Google to crawl your site, if you’re using the default Simple Machine Forum Sitemap? Yep! True, and today, we shall be discussing how we can create one the easy way so Google and other search engine can better and faster index our forum. But first, let’s talk…

Having a sitemap is one of the essential steps to take when creating a blog, forum or a website. Sitemap is so essential that if you do not have it installed on your site, it might not get indexed or properly indexed by search engines.

What is sitemap?

According to Wikipedia: The Sitemaps protocol allows a webmaster to inform search engines about URLs on a website that are available for crawling. A Sitemap is an XML file that lists the URLs for a site.

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Now if you’re running a forum on the SMF platform, you’ll notice that it does not have a sitemap or if it does, it’s not supported by the Google Webmaster tool or the Bing webmaster tool.

That’s bad, because we want Google search and other search engines to properly index our forum and index it faster. So we can get some search traffic to better sell what we have to a wider audience 😉

How can I install the perfect Simple Machine Forum Sitemap so Google can better index my site?

When I created my first forum, believe me, I tried enough sitemaps mod and none solved my sitemap problem until I tried the “SEO sitemap and XML sitemap” mod.

When you install the mod, it will create both XML and HTML site maps to help your visitors better navigate your site.

Simple Machine Forum Sitemap and How to Create One

How to Install and Activate the SEO Sitemap and XML Sitemap

To start with the process, you will first download the sitemap at Simple Machine Forum official site or download it using this link SEO sitemap and XML sitemap

Have you downloaded the mod? If yes, go to your admin center and click “Package Manager”

In the “Package Manager” interface, click “Download Packages” to take you to the next stage

Scroll down to the “Upload a Package”, click the “Browse” button and locate where you downloaded the Sitemap mod and click “Open”.

Now, press the “Upload” button to install the mod. Follow instruction and you’re done with the install.

If you have successfully installed the mod, simply click “Modification Settings” in your Admin panel.

Under your “Miscellaneous” settings you will see the SEO Sitemap and XML Sitemap settings

In the dropdown menu of the SEO Sitemap and XML Sitemap settings, you will see 3 options – namely; Sitemap 1,2,3…, sitemap, and hide.

Choosing the option one or two will display your sitemap at the footer of your forum so your visitors can get access to it when they want to.

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Choosing the last option will make the simple machine forum sitemap invincible to the naked eyes but visible to search engines.

Once you’ve choose the way you want your sitemap to be displayed, click the “Save” button and you’re done.

Note: You can easily check your new simple machine forum sitemap using the format below;

XML format: http://yourdomainname.com/index.php?action=kitsitemap;xml  

HTML format: http://yourdomainname.com/index.php?action=kitsitemap

Go to your Google Webmaster tool dashboard and click on “Crawl” >>> click “Sitemaps”

Now click “ADD/TEST SITEMAP” and put in the XML sitemap link and press the “Submit Sitemap”. As seen in the screenshot below.

After submitting your simple machine forum sitemap to Google Webmaster Tool, wait for a few seconds and you will get a “Fresh Page” notification.

Click the “Refresh the Page” link and it will take you to your sitemaps area… now wait for some few hours and you will see your forum has been crawled and indexed.

Now Google will easily and effectively be checking your forum regularly…

But…

But if you haven’t certify your forum with Google Webmaster Tool, simply go to Google Web Master Tool and sign-in with your Gmail account and click “Add A Priority”

In the dialogue box that appears, type in your forum URL and click the “Submit” button

Now you will need to verify if the site is truly yours… by downloading the HTML file you were asked to download and upload it to your forum root folder.

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If you’ve uploaded it, simply click the “verify” button and you have successfully added your site to the Google Webmaster tool.

Conclusion

Having our site indexed by search engine is awesome and having our site indexed even faster is more awesome 🙂

Now that you’ve known the easier way to get your forum indexed faster, practicing it on your blog is the idea, or what do you think?

Back to you

It looks like I have said so much about so much on this post, now it’s time to pass the keyboard to you guys.

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