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Features / Usability

Features / Usability


create a sitemap?

posts: 68

hi,

is there an automated way to create a sitemap? I would just like to have a list of all the article/wiki/html etc. pages in the site on a page - which will make it comfortable for searchbots to index my pages.

and - how is the short-sweet URL created for an article, such as tikiwiki.org/art82?

thanks,
sooraj.

posts: 4656 Japan

I use Categories (tiki-browse_categories.php) for my sites' sitemaps. Categories are the best (only?) way to organize all objects at the site, as far as I know. If you create a hierarchy of categories with a site map in mind, then it'll especially make sense for that purpose. Another advantage of using categories is that you can have category paths at the top of the page, which works a bit like breadcrumb navigation, and also other same-category pages listed at the bottom of the page, for wiki pages.

For short URLs, see SEFURLs.

-- Gary

posts: 33 United States

> I use Categories (tiki-browse_categories.php) for my sites' sitemaps.
> — Gary

Another area to look over might be structures; when you are editing a page, you can see the show/hide categories and show/hide structures tabs. You can (in "admin structures," which tab shows up once you click "show structures") create structures for Tables of contents pages and so forth, and the feature has a "dump tree" function, too.

Structures are a good way to create pages and establish a relationship between them; the relationship shows up in a navigation bar above your pages.




posts: 68

Thanks a lot Gary.

But problem is, I had not used Categories before and so when i turn it on, there is nothing in the categories.

Regarding SEFURLs, I am on shared hosting, so how would I be able to enable them at my end? Is it possible at all?

posts: 4656 Japan

> But problem is, I had not used Categories before and so when i turn it on, there is nothing in the categories.

That's right. You have to decide on what categories to make and then categorize things. I suggest making a category tree/hierarchy that can include everything you want in your sitemap — wiki pages, forums, blogs, galleries, etc. Then add objects to this on the Admin Categories page. And when you make a new wiki page, etc., categorize it on its edit page.

Of course Categories are best used to organize things along topic lines, such as in a directory like wikipedia. Also, at one site, I use Categories to collect objects according to user group; we have a number of special interest groups at the site, and each group has its own wiki pages, forum, galleries, etc. So it's natural to put these things in categories, makes finding things easy, etc. In the sitemap, there is a "Groups" item that is the parent of the specific user groups.

A conventional sitemap has links like "About," "Contact," and so on. These aren't easily categorized in terms of content, so you could put them in a "Site information" category, maybe. Or, make a "Home" category (mainly to have the link in the sitemap) for them.

The advantage of using Categories for the sitemap is that Categories is more than a navigation tool; it's a good way to organize diverse things on the site. On the down side, the browse-categories page is called "Categories", not "Sitemap," so there could be some confusion for users. On my main menu at one site, I labeled the link "Site map (categories)" as a kind of half-way solution. It might be a good idea to edit the browse-categories template file to add the word "Sitemap" somewhere.

Well, this is an interesting area to me because of the challenge of providing thorough and clear navigation for a wiki.

> Regarding SEFURLs, I am on shared hosting, so how would I be able to enable them at my end? Is it possible at all?

I don't think it's possible in shared hosting, but haven't really checked.

-- Gary


posts: 68

Thanks so much guys.

The one problem with Categories/Structures is that I have over 1200 pages now and will have to categorize each of them individually! So I have ruled that out. Moreover, when you have related links, and I having only about 30 categories and 1200 pages, each on average will yield 40 pages. And the site will grow bigger.

But what I eventually did for a sitemap was to make a wiki page with the Last Articles module, and the maximum items set to 1200 - which included all my articles. But such a large wiki page just won't load - so I copied the source from the preview of the wiki page, and made a HTML page using TW htmlpages. Only problem is, it won't update itself like Structures/Categories will. Not a big deal, though! I can do this periodically.


posts: 101

All in all, should we or should we not create a sitemap when contructing a wiki site?

I've read few posts including a tracker created by Marc dated 2008 and it seems that there is not much interrest in the sitemap subject. In your opinion, is there a need to create a sitemap?

These guys seem to think that yes, we should create and have a way to maintain a sitemap. And to add to the subject, Google proposes that we reference our site and have a whole section dedicated to sitemaps.

What do you think?

Daniel.

posts: 3665 United States

You can use tools like XML Sitemaps to automatically generate a sitemap of all pages (which is different than a categorized list, as discussed above). Note that these tools will work only for public pages.

HTH,

- Rick | My Tiki Blog | My Tiki UserPage

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