XMAP confusion around xml file directory

[tokenring]

those are two separate files. the first is robots and the second is the sitemap

[tokenring]

like I said before, my previous post was represented by two separate files. Here they are again but with the updated contents

robots.txt

User-agent: *
Disallow: /administrator/
Disallow: /cache/
Disallow: /components/
Disallow: /images/
Disallow: /includes/
Disallow: /installation/
Disallow: /language/
Disallow: /libraries/
Disallow: /media/
Disallow: /modules/
Disallow: /plugins/
Disallow: /templates/
Disallow: /tmp/
Disallow: /xmlrpc/
SITEMAP: http://www.allwildlife.ca/index.php?option=com_xmap&sitemap=1&view=xml


sitemap.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<sitemapindex xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9">
<sitemap>
<loc>http://www.allwildlife.ca/index.php?option=com_xmap&amp;view=xml&amp;sitemap=1</loc>

</sitemap>
</sitemapindex>


what site or sites do you use to validate a SEO test against sitemaps? It seems if I use a testing site that asks me to enter the exact path the xml, then the test passes, but from a testing site where I only specify the domain, it can never find it.

[tokenring]

updated sitemap.xml again with this.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<sitemapindex xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9">
<sitemap>
<loc>http://www.allwildlife.ca/index.php?option=com_xmap&sitemap=1&view=xml</loc>

</sitemap>
</sitemapindex>

[guilleva]

Looks like you have a rule in your .htaccess for your sitemap.xml, that file should be useless if you have rule in your htaccess as it would not be possible to reach it. You should use eiher one of the two options.

BTW, you may want to change your robots.txt to specify the "friendly" url instead of the other, like this:

SITEMAP: http://www.allwildlife.ca/sitemap.xml

[tokenring]

okay, I commented out the following in the .htaccess file

# enable to allow SEO tests to see sitemap.xml in root directory
#RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/sitemap.xml
#RewriteRule .* /index.php?option=com_xmap&sitemap=1&view=xml

and used the friendly version of the URL in the robots.txt file.

I'll try the tests again. Thanks for the help.

Aaron

[tokenring]

If I comment out the entries in .htaccess, I fail sitemap xml format validation

http://www.automapit.com/sitemapvalidator.html

if I uncomment those lines, then I pass again. I'm just getting more confused and I didn't quite understand your last comment so I think I will leave it. I appreciate your help very much.

This is great support!

Thanks,
Aaron

[guilleva]

You can leave those lines on the htaccess and should be fine unless you have more than one sitemap and want to include all of them into your sitemap index (the sitemap.xml you just pasted).

The errors should be happening because of the latest changes you made to it, the "&" on the url should be encoded as "&amp;"

[tokenring]

The errors should be happening because of the latest changes you made to it, the "&" on the url should be encoded as "&amp;"

I'm assuming you are talking about sitemap.xml because you referred to the file as "it" and that is the last one I changed.

so this line in sitemap.xml

http://www.allwildlife.ca/index.php?option=com_xmap&sitemap=1&view=xml

should read

http://www.allwildlife.ca/index.php?option=com_xmap&amp;sitemap=1&amp;view=xml

[guilleva]

Yes, that's correct!

[tokenring]

it's me again

Sorry, but I've got a situation and I can't find the problem. Here are the details again.

www.funkhousebeats.com

robots
SITEMAP: http://www.funkyhousebeats.com/index.php?option=com_xmap&sitemap=1&view=xml

sitemap
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<sitemapindex xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9">
<sitemap>
<loc>http://www.funkyhousebeats.com/index.php?option=com_xmap&amp;view=xml&amp;id=1&amp;lang=en</loc>
</sitemap>
</sitemapindex>


www.giznaj.com

robots
SITEMAP: http://www.giznaj.com/index.php?option=com_xmap&sitemap=1&view=xml

sitemap
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<sitemapindex xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9">
<sitemap>
<loc>http://www.giznaj.com/index.php?option=com_xmap&amp;view=xml&amp;id=1&amp;lang=en</loc>

</sitemap>
</sitemapindex>

www.funkyhousebeats.com is joomla 1.5.X
passes xml validation tests @
http://www.automapit.com/sitemapvalidator.html
http://www.smart-it-consulting.com/internet/google/submit-validate-sitemap/index.htm

www.giznaj.com is joomla 1.7.X
fails xml validation tests @
http://www.automapit.com/sitemapvalidator.html
http://www.smart-it-consulting.com/internet/google/submit-validate-sitemap/index


sorry for wasting your time on this.

Aaron