Should sitemap be split over several pages?

[Guest]

Hi there,

Please could someone advise if a sites sitemap should be split over several pages if there are many links on it?

 

I read somewhere that google treats pages with too many links like it's a bad site or something but I'm not sure what that's all about.

 

My site currently only has just over 500 products on it and so there are at least this many links on the one page.

 

Could someone advise me if this information is in fact correct and if it is, could someone please advise how I would go about splitting the pages as I'm still very new at this.

 

Many thanks in advance.

[Jack_mcs]

Yes, it can be a problem. There's no majic number but, generally, any more than 50/per page is too much. But it also depends on the text on the page. The search engines are trying to guard aginast "Link Farms," which are sites that just list links for the purpose of improving a sites importance. Installing the All Products with Images contribution will help prevent that from happening.

 

Jack

[Guest]

Yes, it can be a problem. There's no majic number but, generally, any more than 50/per page is too much. But it also depends on the text on the page. The search engines are trying to guard aginast "Link Farms," which are sites that just list links for the purpose of improving a sites importance. Installing the All Products with Images contribution will help prevent that from happening.

 

Jack

 

Thanks for the response and explanation Jack_mcs, that has helped a lot.

 

I have looked at the contribution that you have advised and was wondering if you could help me to understand what this contribution does as the description of it doesn't do that and I was wondering what it is that I would be installing and what it actually does.

 

Sorry if I'm not so clued up, I am learning but very slowly!!

 

Many thanks

[Jack_mcs]

It provides a link to all of your products. The number of products per page is determined by a setting in admin.

 

Jack

[Guest]

It provides a link to all of your products. The number of products per page is determined by a setting in admin.

 

Jack

Oh great thats fab. Can you tell me does that mean that I should then do away with the sitemap?

 

Many thanks

[Jack_mcs]

No, All Products lists products and the site map lists categories. You need them both.

 

I assumed you meant a sitemap contribution that is on the site, not one behind it like the google sitemap. In the latter case, that also has products but none of that is visible to the customer. So, really, you need all three.

 

Jack

[Guest]

No, All Products lists products and the site map lists categories. You need them both.

 

I assumed you meant a sitemap contribution that is on the site, not one behind it like the google sitemap. In the latter case, that also has products but none of that is visible to the customer. So, really, you need all three.

 

Jack

 

That's great thanks, I'll get on with that just now.

Could you help me out please with stage 1 of the contribution installation. When I run the sql statement in my database I get the error that the number is a duplicate for key 1 etc

 

In one of the threads you advise to just change the number to say 700 and try that or just look up the number in the database. Can you tell me how to look up the right number in the database please?

Many thanks again.

[Jack_mcs]

It's the ID of the configuration group that is the problem. Go into phpmyadmin, select your database and then click on the configuration group table. Click on the Brwose button and look at the ID's. You can use any that is not listed.

 

Jack

[Guest]

It's the ID of the configuration group that is the problem. Go into phpmyadmin, select your database and then click on the configuration group table. Click on the Brwose button and look at the ID's. You can use any that is not listed.

 

Jack

 

Sorry, am still new to this.

 

So if my error message says

 

#1062 - Duplicate entry '600' for key 1

 

Which part in the allprods sql statement do I change please?

[Guest]

Sorry, am still new to this.

 

So if my error message says

 

#1062 - Duplicate entry '600' for key 1

 

Which part in the allprods sql statement do I change please?

 

Oh dear, it seems I also have another problem now !!

 

For some reason all of my orders in my admin area have changed from having a £ sign in front of them to having a ? sign in front of them instead. How would that happen?? Can you advise how I can change that back too??

 

Many thanks

[Jack_mcs]

Sorry, am still new to this.

 

So if my error message says

 

#1062 - Duplicate entry '600' for key 1

 

Which part in the allprods sql statement do I change please?

In the sql file, find the line that starts with

INSERT INTO configuration_group (configuration_group_id, configuration_group_title, configuration_group_description, sort_order, visible) VALUES ('29',

The 29 is the group id. Change that to some number not in use. The below that line, change the 29 in each of the statements to your new number and try uploading again.

 

Jack

[Jack_mcs]

Oh dear, it seems I also have another problem now !!

 

For some reason all of my orders in my admin area have changed from having a £ sign in front of them to having a ? sign in front of them instead. How would that happen?? Can you advise how I can change that back too??

 

Many thanks

It depends on what you did to cause it to change. If you can restore your database, you can try that. Though I wouldn't recommend it if you are not sure how to do it or if it changed since the last save. You can try going to admin->Localization->Currencies and editing the symbol for the currency. If that is all that was changed, it will work. But if you made some change to the database to cause it to use a different collation setting, then that needs to be changed back.

 

Jack

[Guest]

It depends on what you did to cause it to change. If you can restore your database, you can try that. Though I wouldn't recommend it if you are not sure how to do it or if it changed since the last save. You can try going to admin->Localization->Currencies and editing the symbol for the currency. If that is all that was changed, it will work. But if you made some change to the database to cause it to use a different collation setting, then that needs to be changed back.

 

Jack

 

I really appreciate all your help Jack_mcs, I did back up my database but it seems that I missed that the problem seems to have occurred before I noticed it as even my backup has this problem.

 

Could you please tell me if there is an sql statement that I could run to change all the ? at once?

 

The problem is only occurring in the admin part of my site, on the customers orders page.

 

It seems to come from the orders_total table in the database - when I browse this I can see in the text column that all the amounts of money have ? in front of them instead of £.

This is the same for all classes (i.e. ot_subtotal, ot_shipping, ot_total.

 

Can you advise? Many thanks.

 

(I still plan to install the all products with images contribution this evening, thanks for all your advice on that).

[Jack_mcs]

You can go into phpmyadmin, click on the sql tab and run this

update orders_total set text = replace(text, ‘?’, ‘£’);

But I'm not sure that will fix the problem. if you place a new order and it appears OK, then I wouldn't worry about the past orders - they probably won' t be used again. But if your new order has the wrong character, then there is another problem and the above won't fix that.

 

Jack

[Guest]

You can go into phpmyadmin, click on the sql tab and run this

update orders_total set text = replace(text, ‘?’, ‘£’);

But I'm not sure that will fix the problem. if you place a new order and it appears OK, then I wouldn't worry about the past orders - they probably won' t be used again. But if your new order has the wrong character, then there is another problem and the above won't fix that.

 

Jack

 

Thanks for your help Jack_mcs, unfortunately that didn't work. You are right, it is all orders previous to today that have the ? symbol instead of £, new orders coming in are £. Isn't that strange?

 

One of those things maybe we'll never know the answer to?

 

Many thanks

[Guest]

Jack,

 

I have just been advised that it could be to do with the database language and that I should use this addon http://addons.oscommerce.com/info/5404

 

I have looked at it but before I try it I was wondering if you thought that this could be it?

 

Many thanks

[Jack_mcs]

Yes, that is what I was saying previously, or trying to. But before trying that contribution, ask your host if they will swtich it for you. It is a relatively minor change for someone familiar with altering databases, which your host should be. They may not do it for you but if they will, it is the better way to go. Make a backup beforehand - no matter who does what. :)

 

Jack

[Guest]

In the sql file, find the line that starts with

INSERT INTO configuration_group (configuration_group_id, configuration_group_title, configuration_group_description, sort_order, visible) VALUES ('29',

The 29 is the group id. Change that to some number not in use. The below that line, change the 29 in each of the statements to your new number and try uploading again.

 

Jack

 

Hi there,

Have done this now and it seemed to work ok.

Have installed the rest as per instructions but have a small problem with the link in the info box - although it points to /allprods.php the page it actually takes me to when clicked is my index page.

So I can't actually see if the installation has worked.

Can you help please?

Thank you.

[Guest]

Hi there,

Have done this now and it seemed to work ok.

Have installed the rest as per instructions but have a small problem with the link in the info box - although it points to /allprods.php the page it actually takes me to when clicked is my index page.

So I can't actually see if the installation has worked.

Can you help please?

Thank you.

Sorry, was a bit previous with my post.

Went to contribution page and one step above was the update that included the configuration to see the /allprods.php page - so it works fine now.

 

Thanks for all your help Jack_mcs. You've been very patient. Much appreciated.