Google News Sitemap Generator for Joomla

Written on Jul 16, 2008 // Net, Open Source.

After looking in the whole web (ok, not in the whole web but a major part of it for sure) a Sitemap Generator for Google News (not the search engine) compatible with the CMS i’m currently using, i convinced myself to realize it with my fingers, so that it could be integrated with my Joomla Installation and that it could import url from Open Sef plugin.

Those who know Google News know how that site is a great resource of traffic directed to our websites. However it’s very important for a good positioning (obviously after being accepted on ‘the clan’) creating a sitemap which is conform to the rules that Google dictate at this page.

After realizing that (few code lines, a connection not so much more), I packed it, wrote the README, created a configuration file and made it available for Download. Everything is released under GPL v3 Licence.

Go to Google News Sitemap Generator

10 responses so far, say something?

Arjun
Jul 16, 2008, 10:19 am
Hi Andrea,

Have been hunting for the same myself, hit upon your site on my search.

However I use sh404SEF (and it works really well) on my site and not OpenSEF.

Is there any work around for this in the package you’ve built ?

Arjun
Andrea Olivato
Jul 16, 2008, 10:30 am
Hello Arjun,

you’re the second person who ask me for a fork working with sh404SEF and I already realized that.

You can download it from here:

http://blog.andreaolivato.net/downloadsgooglenews_sitemap_1.5.x_mod_sh404.zip

I didn’t test this version as I don’t own the sh404 plugin however the other person who asked me for this fork, tried this and told me it works!

Let me know if it works for you too!
Gerd
Jul 16, 2008, 4:51 pm
Hi Andrea,

great work - you are one of the best. I was looking into the code and the only thing I was missing is the function for joomla 1.x. Im not the best of programmer and after some tests I give up and I think its better to ask you whats the difference for joomla 1.x (1.15). Maybe you have an idea for the google news sitemap with sh404 (I think many people are using the 404sef because the opensef was stoped)

If you have an hint - it would be great.

Thankx a lot and have a nice day.
Gerd
Andrea Olivato
Jul 16, 2008, 9:31 pm
Hello Gerd,

try this one, I think I successfully modified it for working on a 1.0.x installation…please give me a feedback so that I confirm this as working and publish for others

http://blog.andreaolivato.net/downloadsgooglenews_sitemap_1.0.x_mod_sh404.zip
Gerd
Jul 16, 2008, 9:17 pm
hi Andrea,
thanks a lot for your work. I have seen the code and you make some changes. wow.

At thsi moment, there are no errors but also no news. The script brings the header
”

”
and than it is empty.

I use it with show errors too.

Hm..
Andrea Olivato
Jul 16, 2008, 12:34 am
Hello Gerd,

you were right I checked the files and there was a mistake on a control…can you please re-download the file

http://blog.andreaolivato.net/downloadsgooglenews_sitemap_1.0.x_mod_sh404-1.zip

and to use it? I believe it should work right now… I tested it with Joomla 1.0.15 Stable and Sh404 1.3.8_build_337
Gerd
Jul 16, 2008, 7:23 pm
Hi Andrea,
great. The news are available. Thank you very much my friend.
I used it with joomla 1.0.15 and use sh404 1.38_build337
One question:
I have a lot of news in the domain and after some time the script end with the following error message:
HTTP/1.1 200 OK Date: Wed, 03 Dec 2008 17:11:41 GMT Server: Apache/1.3.39 (Unix) mod_auth_pam/1.1.1 mod_fastcgi/2.4.6 mod_ssl/2.8.30 OpenSSL/0.9.8g FrontPage/5.0.2.2510 X-Powered-By: PHP/4.4.9 Keep-Alive: timeout=15, max=97 Connection: Keep-Alive Transfer-Encoding: chunked Content-Type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1
OK
Is the problem that I have to much news? If so and the timeout comes correct, I think we have to say a limit because all user will have the same problem. If you have an idea or a hint, it would be welcome.

I will publish the script now to google sitemap and we will see what google say. I give you a response.

have a nice day
Gerd (Munich)
Andrea Olivato
Jul 16, 2008, 10:25 pm
Hi gerd,

try to change this one:
$ricerca_urls=”SELECT oldurl,newurl,rank,id FROM “.$tables_prefix.”redirection ORDER BY id DESC”;

into this
$ricerca_urls=”SELECT oldurl,newurl,rank,id FROM “.$tables_prefix.”redirection ORDER BY id DESC LIMIT 1000″;

this should limit to 1000 the number of urls written to the sitemap…obviously you can change the limit to whatever you prefer…
Gerd
Jul 16, 2008, 10:49 am
Hi Andrea,

good idea - it works. So I will send it again to Google and waiting for an accepting. If Google will accept it - I give you the response. For the moment I send you a “big thank you”.
have a nice day
Gerd
Gerd
Jul 16, 2008, 11:59 am
Hi Andrea,
I think, all code is ok but google send a warning message:
Name room of incorrect the name room is not declared in the XML Sitemap and/or in the XML-Sitemap-index regular.

I use it with:

and with

but the warning message comes again.

So I will test it with

and maybe this will work fine. The information for webmaster is not always the same and different from time to time. But it is in Germany a BETA and so I think the code from you is absolute ok. So let me see what google say if I use the sitemap. I give you the information.

BUT: google take the news and this is ok.

best regards,
Gerd