New feature for images from Google !

[Greg]

This is from the Google Webmasters Blog

And I think it should be added in Xmap as it could simply retrieve the first link met in the src= (+ base url) in the content .

Adding Images to your Sitemaps

Sitemaps are an invaluable resource for search engines. They can highlight the important content on a site and allow crawlers to quickly discover it. Images are an important element of many sites and search engines could equally benefit from knowing which images you consider important. This is particularly true for images that are only accessible via JavaScript forms, or for pages that contain many images but only some of which are integral to the page content.

Now you can use a Sitemaps extension to provide Google with exactly this information. For each URL you list in your Sitemap, you can add additional information about important images that exist on that page. You don’t need to create a new Sitemap, you can just add information on images to the Sitemap you already use.

Adding images to your Sitemaps is easy. Simply follow the instructions in the Webmaster Tools Help Center or refer to the example below:

Code: Select all

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
  <urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9"
   xmlns:image="http://www.google.com/schemas/sitemap-image/1.1">
  <url>
    <loc>http://example.com/sample.html</loc>
    <image:image>
        <image:loc>http://example.com/image.jpg</image:loc>
    </image:image>
  </url>
</urlset>

[guilleva]

Hi Greg! Thanks for suggesting that! I think it's a good idea! I will investigate a little more and see what can I do!

Best Regards,

Guillermo Vargas

[Greg]

Ok,

be aware that the schema actually return a 404
http://www.google.com/schemas/sitemap-image/1.1

so yes we must investigate with caution on this.

[Greg]

Open a bug report, related to this new feature:
http://joomla.vargas.co.cr/en/forum?view=topic&f=2&t=2993

[Greg]

You haven't add the xmlns:image="http://www.google.com/schemas/sitemap-image/1.1"

is it normal ?

[guilleva]

Hi Greg,

yes, I added it, it's at the end of the line <urlset xmlns....

[Greg]

oh

ok sorry, don't remember to have seen it I will look again...perhaps a bug for me.
Or just a brain bug for me...lol

[Greg]

Hi,

Ok I've checked and rechecked but this is what I got on the head of my sitemap, with images set to ON

Code: Select all

<urlset xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9 http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9/sitemap.xsd">
−
<url>
etc ..

No xmlns:image= for me...

[Greg]

I think I will reinstall it from scratch, to be sure...

[leewillis77]

Hi - I've been looking at this new feature for a site I run. Once I've got this issue sorted I'll be looking to develop a patch for the Virtuemart extension to add product images - however ...

With 1.2.7 I do get some images included in my sitemap, but some pages simply don't show the images. I've added some debug into com_content.php and the regex is matching, picking up the images, and added them to $node->images, but the images aren't actually included in the final sitemap.

Since I'm not familiar with the code can anyone point me to the next sensible place to start debugging?

Thanks