Which Direction to go with XML Sitemap

I'm posting here because the sitemap categories seemed to be too specific. My question... I have about 2,000 products.. I would like a Sitemap that lists the products as well as the categories (I think?)..., but when I use sitemap generators they generate around 100,000 pages with things I don't want in my sitemap. I saw a plugin in the Plugins section, but It seems very intrusive to the code. Should I simply get the sitemap that is built into Zencart and convert to XML? If I do that, I would only have Categories, and I want products listed also... I am getting very little traffic to my website. Any advice? Thanks!!!!!!!!

Do you need the sitemap for you customers, or for the search engines?

SitemapXML is very easy to install, and generates good maps for the bots

Johnnycopilot:

I want products listed also...

Why? This really isn't the purpose of a Sitemap.

Johnnycopilot:

I am getting very little traffic to my website. Any advice? Thanks!!!!!!!!

I can't see how listing the products in sitemap(s) will really help that.

As stated by Design75.....

SitemapXML is very easy to install, and generates good maps for the bots

It doesn't need the products added to it as Google find and index the products via the Category links.

The ZenCart Sitemap is designed to help customers navigate the main sections of your site and has nothing to do with Search engine listings.

Cheers
RodG

Thanks Design75 and RodG.. Sorry it took so long to reply; for some reason I'm not getting email notices about replies to my posted threads; I'll go check my settings. OK... If I don't need my product url's listed in sitemap for Google, that's all the better. I'll install SitemapXML and submit that XML map in my Google Webmaster tools. Back in the day, it was very helpful to have hard links to all products,,, but things are so much different now. QUESTION... If Google will find the product urls through the XML Sitemap, why can't/won't Google find the products through the ZenCart Sitemap that is already on the website?,,,, or perhaps a better question would be,,, If PHP code is the roadblock, once I submit the XML sitemap to Google how does Google find these products from that point, and if they can find the products from that point, why can't/don't they find the products from the PHP sitemap that's already on the website? Or should I just shut up, not try to figure it out, and just install SitemapXML? ha...

So, like Design75 and Rodg eluded, there are two different sitemaps in question here... The ZC sitemap is much much more about the people and what they see. Search engine sitemaps/sitemapping has a standard that is expected. The ZC sitemap does not "follow" that standard per se as it 1) has a different address location, 2) has different content (formatting for display, other text, etc.), and 3) is not specifically designed for such indexing.

That google doesn't "need" the products, well, true/untrue, what Rodg was eluding to is that pushing the product information is not necessarily going to increase the hits to the site.

Whaat you will find, unless you disable certain options is that the sitemap xml program suggested will in fact provide all of the products. Further, if you are able to setup a cron job, then it can autoupdate at the periodicity you determine.

As to how it works... In a nutshell, that program creates one of the sitemap files that is "standard" for sitemapping. The file references a folder of other sitemaps and the contents of the folder. Each sitemap file meets one of the desired types of sitempa, categories, products, ez-pages, etc... Each of those files is formatted with the information a bot/spider is expecting to find, the information once collected is then used to go look at the data and do it's thing. This type of sitemap is much better than one that say a host creates of all the files on your server... Many of the files in such a sitemap generation are not reachable and serve little to know value to such a search engine...

So hope that helps a little in understanding. Once you have the program installed, take a look at the resulting files and you'll see the difference compared to the people sitemap. :)

Thanks mc12345678, I appreciate you and the other folks taking the time to explain this and help me.. A few questions..

mc12345678:

.....unless you disable certain options is that the sitemap xml program suggested will in fact provide all of the productsSo, if I don't disable any features/options of sitemapXML, my products will be indexed?
mc12345678:

Further, if you are able to setup a cron job, then it can autoupdate at the periodicity you determine..
What is a cron job? Does it have something to do with scheduling, and if so, doesn't sitemapXML update itself as my site/products change?

Design75:

Do you need the sitemap for you customers, or for the search engines?
Design75, I want this specifically for the Search Engines.

Johnnycopilot:

Design75, I want this specifically for the Search Engines.
Then I would suggest you install sitemapXml.

Johnnycopilot:

Thanks mc12345678, I appreciate you and the other folks taking the time to explain this and help me.. A few questions..
So, if I don't disable any features/options of sitemapXML, my products will be indexed?
.
What is a cron job? Does it have something to do with scheduling, and if so, doesn't sitemapXML update itself as my site/products change?

1st question, yes it will index your products out-of-the-box.

cron job, yes is basically a scheduling type action and can typically be setup through the cPanel or other command prompt like methods. Well, so the files of sitemapXML are updated when the applicable code is run/called from the admin panel. With a cron job, this can happen routinely; however, otherwise like Design75 said, the products listed off of the category listing(s) will help obtain the new products, but otherwise, no the sitemapXML files do not get updated with the addition of a product for example... It does identify the expected periodicity that the product will change, so that helps the spider know when to likely check again.

Design75:

Then I would suggest you install sitemapXml.
Thanks, I will do that...

mc12345678:

1st question, yes it will index your products out-of-the-box.

cron job, yes is basically a scheduling type action and can typically be setup through the cPanel or other command prompt like methods. Well, so the files of sitemapXML are updated when the applicable code is run/called from the admin panel. With a cron job, this can happen routinely; however, otherwise like Design75 said, the products listed off of the category listing(s) will help obtain the new products, but otherwise, no the sitemapXML files do not get updated with the addition of a product for example... It does identify the expected periodicity that the product will change, so that helps the spider know when to likely check again. I'm a little lost... I mean, I don't know how to set up a cron job through my cPanel, and I don't know what other command prompt like methods are. I'm also a little confused as to why there would be an entire plug-in to generate a one-time sitemap that doesn't update itself; but either way, I'm going to install sitemapXML, and research the cron job. Thanks VERY much!

Johnnycopilot:

QUESTION... If Google will find the product urls through the XML Sitemap, why can't/won't Google find the products through the ZenCart Sitemap that is already on the website?,,,,

It will.

Johnnycopilot:

Or should I just shut up, not try to figure it out, and just install SitemapXML? ha...

Seriously, you don't need a sitemap for the search engines as it is only a matter of time before they'll crawl all the links to all of the products on your site.

What the sitemaps do is give the search engines a bit of a 'hint' as to as to what you consider to be the most important parts of your site to index first, and how often the contents are likely to change.

For example, your categories may not change for months (or years), but the products may change daily. Without a sitemap the SE's could conceivably be crawling your categories every week at the expense of crawling the products (the crawls are limited and spread out over time so as to not overwhelm the server(s), so with a Sitemap to guide them they 'know' that if the catagories aren't likely to have changed since the last crawl they'll skip recrawlng those and move directly onto crawling the products.

In other words, it makes things more efficient for the SE's with less demand placed on your server.

If you've only got a small site with few products there isn't really much need for a sitemap as the SE's will be able to crawl the entire site in a single session, but if you have a lvery arge site with lots of categories and products the sitemaps start to become essential else it could take months for them to work their way down to the deepest levels of the site.

BTW, Sitemaps aren't just for Google. Most major search engines will use them if they can be found.

http://www.sitemaps.org/faq.html

Cheers
RodG

Got it. Thanks RodG

Thanks Design75, RodG, and mc12345678. SitemapXML is doing the job and exactly what I needed.