Hi David,
I have read all I could find and it is not 100% clear to me the sitemap.xml URL to submit to Google, how it can be changed from the default "filename" to use something else. Most of the datafeeds I use have a numeric filename like 123456.txt. What I did find says that we should just submit a sitemap URL like: http://example.com/shop/sitemap.php but it produces this URL: http://example.com/shop/sitemap.php?filename=feedname.txt.
In one thread I saw that it was set to use "merchant" field, but it didn't say where/how to change that. I am still working on the setup with just one merchant, but on some sites I will need to look for something else because one "Merchant" may be used for multiple shops in different installs. And one site will have one feed, but several directories/installs. Knowing where and how to make changes will help either way.
Thank you!
2fer
Hello 2fer,
http://example.com/shop/sitemap.php
...is the only URL you need to submit to Google. It returns a Sitemap Index, and Google then requests each individual URL such as
http://example.com/shop/sitemap.php?filename=feedname.txt
...which contains an actual sitemap linking to all product pages derived from the feed specified in filename parameter. The index generates a single index item per feed (or multiple index items if the feed contains > 50,000 products which is the maximum number of entries permitted in a single sitemap).
The reason you will have found reference to using merchant in the forum is from earlier versions of Price Tapestry which required a 1-1 mapping between filename and merchant name, but since this is no longer the case (and Price Tapestry supports all combinations of multiple feeds for the same merchant, individual feeds per merchant or even multiple merchants in the same feed) the sitemap is now indexed by filename instead.
Cheers,
David.
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PriceTapestry.com