XF 2.3 No sitemap.xml created.

[PaulyWalnuts]

I go to ACP/option/XML sitemap generation, and click save.

I get no indication that it was successful or not, and I search all folders within public_html, but see no sitemap.xml, except for the blogs. I DO have a sitemap.php.

I make no changes to the settings. All is set to the defaults including "Automatically submit sitemap to search engines", and the URL is: https://thevapeworkshop.com. Since we started with only a blog at the root of public_html, the forum is in a sub folder called xf.

 

[ENF]

I go to ACP/option/XML sitemap generation, and click save.

I get no indication that it was successful or not, and I search all folders within public_html, but see no sitemap.xml, except for the blogs. I DO have a sitemap.php.

I make no changes to the settings. All is set to the defaults including "Automatically submit sitemap to search engines", and the URL is: https://thevapeworkshop.com. Since we started with only a blog at the root of public_html, the forum is in a sub folder called xf.

You can see the generated sitemap here: https://thevapeworkshop.com/xf/sitemap.xml

 

[PaulyWalnuts]

You can see the generated sitemap here: https://thevapeworkshop.com/xf/sitemap.xml

Good grief! I know my age is reducing the number of brain cell in my cranium, but I don't even see a folder: https://thevapeworkshop.com/xf/forums/hardware-reviews.24. I see thevapeworkshop.com/xf, but I see no sub folder of forums.

How do you see that? What exactly do you do to access that? Is it a browser extension? Kinda scary to me, really.

Are those being seen by search engines? I'm really struggling with SEO as it applies to a forum.

I was running the forum on phpbb but I don't like it, (hence the move to xenforo) but any SEO analytics seems to see no difference between the two. They still says, 15 pages detected, 5 browsed and it whines about duplicate content (Some crap about canonical whatever...) As you can see from the sitemaps you found there are more than 15 pages.

As the site is brand new, I'm willing to risk sharing an admin login to someone that's willing to help for free. (Retired/fixed income)

This is: https://thevapeworkshop.com/xf. I see no sitemap.xml. I see a .php, though.

 

[ENF]

Good grief! I know my age is reducing the number of brain cell in my cranium, but I don't even see a folder: https://thevapeworkshop.com/xf/forums/hardware-reviews.24. I see thevapeworkshop.com/xf, but I see no sub folder of forums.

That's not how it works. The Xenforo routing controller intercepts the request and redirects it where it needs to go. The key aspect in that URL are the 'forums' and '24'. The rest of that URL is just visually friendly to search engines and end users. It's a logical folder, not a physical one.

How do you see that? What exactly do you do to access that? Is it a browser extension? Kinda scary to me, really.

Are those being seen by search engines? I'm really struggling with SEO as it applies to a forum.

All XF sites function the same way, it's not a magical addon or browser thing. And yes, search engines can see those sitemap files.

This is: https://thevapeworkshop.com/xf. I see no sitemap.xml. I see a .php, though.

The sitemaps are actually in the sitemap folder. The sitemap.php is just a front end handler.

I was running the forum on phpbb but I don't like it, (hence the move to xenforo) but any SEO analytics seems to see no difference between the two. They still says, 15 pages detected, 5 browsed and it whines about duplicate content (Some crap about canonical whatever...) As you can see from the sitemaps you found there are more than 15 pages.

If I put "site:thevapeworkshop.com" into a google search page, I get 10+ pages of results and they all appear to be the correct XF links to your updated site. The first thing I suggest you do is to update your default robots.txt file (seen here https://thevapeworkshop.com/robots.txt). There's a lot of 'noise' that search engines don't need to see. It's also noted that your sitemap URL in your robots.txt is wrong.

I think at a minimum, you'd what to have something like this:

User-agent: *
Disallow: /xf/whats-new/
Disallow: /xf/account/
Disallow: /xf/attachments/
Disallow: /xf/goto/
Disallow: /xf/posts/
Disallow: /xf/login/
Disallow: /xf/search/
Disallow: /xf/admin.php
Allow: /

Sitemap: https://thevapeworkshop.com/xf/sitemap.xml

You can search Xenforo for other input on robots.txt configuration.

 

[PaulyWalnuts]

I'm not seeing a folder with that name. Forgive me, I'm too old and shouldn't be playing with this "stuff", but my doc says to keep challenging my deteriorating brain. And having been retired since 2008, I'm easily bored.

This is the robots.txt bluehost created in the folder public_html\xf.

Sitemap: https://thevapeworkshop.com/sitemap.xml
User-agent: *
allow: /

 

[ENF]

I'm not seeing a folder with that name. Forgive me, I'm too old and shouldn't be playing with this "stuff", but my doc says to keep challenging my deteriorating brain. And having been retired since 2008, I'm easily bored.

Apologies, my mistake, you should find the sitemap folder under /xf/internal_data - you should see the most recent, updated sitemap files in there.

This is the robots.txt bluehost created in the folder public_html\xf.

You should edit that file with at least the suggestions I mentioned above. Your sitemap URL would be https://thevapeworkshop.com/xf/sitemap.xml.

I don't see a robots.txt under /xf but I do see one at your website root: https://thevapeworkshop.com/robots.txt