Actually the mx Google sitemaps mod rewrite feature in ACP only concern the sitemaps links, turned on as you noticed, the URLs are rewritten in the sitemapIndex output.

In the release ther is a folder called contrib/ in wich you'll find an .htacces file . In it, there are the sample rewriterules required for those rewritten mx Google sitemaps links to works (it as nothing to deal with phpBB URLs).

So you just need, if yo which to activate the mod rewrite for those, which is not a must, more a cosmetic feature in this case, because Google will spider those the same, and they won't get PageRank, you'll need to implement those rewriterules and to turn the mod rewrite feature on in ACP.

If you need help, post her your forum's .htacces and I'll help you

Anyway, beside this, your Google Sitemap is ready to be submited

++

Ok here is where I am at. I have turned off the mod rewrite in the ACP which in turn makes the URLs on the sitemap.php dynamic. So I then also uploaded the sitemap_forum from the simple mod rewrite folder to the correct folder. Which in turn makes the links form the sitemap.php static which follow the correct static urls if you were justing browsing the forum. I submitted and google took it. So I guess that will work for now since in the end the static URLs are the same across the board if that makes sense. So I can live with the sitemap.php links being dynamic because they link and follow to static URLs in the end which works for me and is what's most important right?

So with the sitemap.php links not being static make much of a difference since the end result is links that are static?

Also should I take the force login mod off? Will it make much differnce with it being on?

Actually, Google will deal very well with the dynamic sitemaps original link.

The mod rewrite is a cosmetic matter as told in this case, because those aren't real page to Google.

So you can stay with those no problem, as long as the end links, the one linked to your forum are correct, which is the case I confirm.

Then, for the force login mod, you have to consider you are giving less occasions for bots to spider you forum, the index being the home, where everything starts ...

mx Google sitemaps will help Google to still find your topic URLs, even though they do not have many links to them see-able by bots.

I'd personally prefer to set up private forums than to be this strict on the index itself, but it all depends on you strategy. The only thing is your content is most likely to end up with less PageRank since you don't show the ost interesting links ot it (index).

mx Sitemaps can help a bit as well since it will provide more links to your content, but still, I'd go for private forums, because being the most search-able is as well a good opportunities to be viewed and then to get members as well.

++

Thanks for the insight. I have removed the login mod for the time being after doing some research on my index I found out that the bots were stoping at the login page and indexing it as the index page. So we'll sit on this configuration for a little while and see how things work out. I have over 3,000 pages indexed without doing all this SEO work, but they are not relative content worth veiwing if you know what I mean. So lets see what happens with all this SEO work and the login mod removed. I think it will make a world of good.

That's one reason I had the login mod is because if they did come upon my forum I wanted them to have to regisiter to view it since I hadn't done any SEO work. Since I have now, lets see what happens. Trial and error is the only way to find out right?... LoL.

Hey, no errors you done here, if the mod made you start your member community, then it's a success

Because a forum need two things even more than to be SEOed at first, is content and members.

No point at all to Search Engine Optimize to death an empty forum with 2 members.

Then, something is strange with your mx Sitemaps installation, links are not rewritten, maybe you should post in it's topic as well

Trial an error is called experimentation, thus science

++

I am sure you'll all appreciate this one

Im almost there with this install, but I think I have one last problem which I should resolve before I submit my sitemap to google. Im running with the mixed mod rewrite, so I've added the followinf to the htaccess file in the sites root directory

# phpBB
RewriteRule ^sitemaps.xml$ sitemap.php [L]
RewriteRule ^forum-sitemap-([0-9]+).xml$ sitemap.php?fid=$1 [L]
RewriteRule ^sitemap-forum.xml$ sitemap.php?forum [L]
# mxBB
RewriteRule ^mx-sitemap.xml$ sitemap.php?mx [L]

when opening sitemap.php in a browser i get:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
- <sitemapindex xmlns="http://www.google.com/schemas/sitemap/0.84" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.google.com/schemas/sitemap/0.84 http://www.google.com/schemas/sitemap/0 ... eindex.xsd">
- <!-- Generated by mx Google Sitemaps v1.0.1 - (C) 2006 dcz - http://www.phpbb-seo.com/
-->
- <sitemap>
<loc>http://www.dvdbargainalerts.co.uk/mx-sitemap.xml</loc>
</sitemap>
- <sitemap>
<loc>http://www.dvdbargainalerts.co.uk/forum-sitemap-15.xml</loc>
<lastmod>2006-07-09T11:39:57+00:00</lastmod>
</sitemap>
- <sitemap>
....

However if I try to follow one of the xml entries (i have to paste the url into the browser to do this) i get the following:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
- <urlset xmlns="http://www.google.com/schemas/sitemap/0.84" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.google.com/schemas/sitemap/0.84 http://www.google.com/schemas/sitemap/0.84/sitemap.xsd">
- <!-- Generated by mx Google Sitemaps v1.0.1 - (C) 2006 dcz - http://www.phpbb-seo.com/
-->
- <url>
<loc>http://www.dvdbargainalerts.co.uk/phpBB2/viewforum.php?f=18</loc>
<lastmod>2006-07-09T09:20:42+00:00</lastmod>
<changefreq>always</changefreq>
<priority>1.0</priority>
</url>
- <url>
<loc>http://www.dvdbargainalerts.co.uk/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=117</loc>
<lastmod>2006-07-09T09:20:42+00:00</lastmod>
<changefreq>always</changefreq>
<priority>1.0</priority>
</url>
- <url>
...

As you can see the URLs are not rewritten here. Any ideas what could be causing this?

So, the mx google sitemaps mod is installed correctly.

You just need to upload the contrib/moded_4_mod_rewrites/phpBB_SEO_mod_Rewrites/Mixed_Mod_Rewrite/sitemap_forum.php to mg_ggsitemaps/includes/ (overwrite the file) and the correct URLs will be outputted

mx Sitemaps is another great addition as well

++

No, I've tried that too, still no joy

Could it be something to do with the fact that I have the forum installed in a sub-folder?

Hum,

Are you really sure you uploaded the correct file in the correct folder ?

contrib/moded_4_mod_rewrites/phpBB_SEO_mod_Rewrites/Mixed_Mod_Rewrite/ sitemap_forum.php to mg_ggsitemaps/includes/sitemap_forum.php ?

Because looking at the file, there is no possible way it will output a viewtopic.php link, the code doing this in the original file is commented and the correct line of code follows.

If needed, re DL the pack as you may have messed up with files.


++

Doh! Yes, dumb user here

I had copied the original version over the top of itself instead of the version from the contrib folder. So it effectively did not change a thing!!

It works now tho DC, thankyou for your time. I'll look into the mx sitemap mod tomorrow - so brace yourself for more dumb questions

hehe, I am ready

Hi there.
I've installed the Google Sitemaps mod. It seems to be creating the sitemap.php file OK but not the individual XML file.

Have I missed something/done something wrong?

Nope.

Actually, to activae the mod rewrite you need to implement the rewriterules porvided in the contrib/folder's .htaccess, just the rewriterules and after the forum ones in the same .htaccess.

Then you'll need to upload contrib/moded_4_mod_rewrites/phpBB_SEO_mod_Rewrites/Mixed_Mod_Rewrite/ sitemap_forum.php to mg_ggsitemaps/includes/sitemap_forum.php as said two posts above in order to output the correct url in the listing.

Basically to see if it's working, just test -http://www.legalitforums.com/sitemap.php?fid=13 it's a forum sitemap
and
-http://www.legalitforums.com/sitemap.php?forum it's a sitemap listing forum's URL
and of course -http://www.legalitforums.com/sitemap.php

And note that these are the natural URLs, the mod rewritten are different, both works with Google, here mod rewrite is more a cosmetic feature, but still, I prefer.

Once you have checked one forum sitemap to make sure it outputs the correct URLS to phpBB topics (mod rewritten in your case), then you can submit sitemap.php (which is sitemaps.xml with mod rewrite).

++

Thanks. I think I've got confused because I installed Google Sitemaps mod before Mod Rewrite - so now I need to change Google Sitemaps.

I think my sitemap.php is wrong as it points to xml files:

http://www.legalitforums.com/sitemap.php

I've uploaded contrib/moded_4_mod_rewrites/phpBB_SEO_mod_Rewrites/Mixed_Mod_Rewrite/ sitemap_forum.php to mg_ggsitemaps/includes/sitemap_forum.php

but I'm not sure what I need to do with the .htaccess file

Thanks very much.