InstallationSingle Server Deployment

Single Server Deployment

Configure the Sitemap Export Task

A sitemap is used by a shop administrator to inform search engines about the webshop URLs that are available for indexing. The sitemap is the XML file that contains the webshop URLs with additional metadata about each URL: when it was last updated, how often it changes, and how important it is in relation to other webshop URLs.

By default six types of pages are available for indexing: 'Content pages', 'Content landing pages', 'Product list pages', 'Product landing pages', 'News items' and 'Product details pages'.

The language-specific URLs are also created in the 'sitemap' files when the webshop is multi-language.

In case of a multi-shop solution a separate 'Sitemap Export' task must be configured for each webshop.

The sitemap functionality uses the Sana Commerce task scheduler. For more information about the task scheduler read this chapter.

The configuration of the sitemap is performed in the 'sanaCommerce' configuration section of the backoffice 'web.config' file.

To configure the 'Sitemap Export' task:

  • Open the backoffice 'web.config' file;
  • Locate the 'SanaCommerce' configuration section;
  • Locate the 'tasks' subsection:
<task name="SiteMapTask"
     type="Sana.Commerce.Tasks.SiteMap.SiteMapTask,  Sana.Commerce.Tasks.SiteMap"
     title="Sitemap export"
     time="1:00am"
     enabled="false"
     websiteCode = "B2xSql"
     folderName = "SiteMap"
     allowManualStart="true"
     itemsCountInFile ="50000"
     compress = "true"
>
<providers>
    <provider name="ProductSiteMapExportProvider" type="Sana.Commerce.Sdk.SiteMap.Providers.ProductSiteMapExportProvider, Sana.Commerce.Sdk" batchSize="100" priority="0.5" changeFrequency="daily"/>
    <provider name="ContentLandingPageSiteMapExportProvider" type="Sana.Commerce.Sdk.SiteMap.Providers.ContentLandingPageSiteMapExportProvider, Sana.Commerce.Sdk" batchSize="1000" priority="0.5" changeFrequency="daily"/>
    <provider name="ContentPageSiteMapExportProvider" type="Sana.Commerce.Sdk.SiteMap.Providers.ContentPageSiteMapExportProvider, Sana.Commerce.Sdk" batchSize="1000" priority="0.5" changeFrequency="daily"/>
    <provider name="NewsItemSiteMapExportProvider" type="Sana.Commerce.Sdk.SiteMap.Providers.NewsItemSiteMapExportProvider, Sana.Commerce.Sdk" batchSize="1000" priority="0.5" changeFrequency="daily"/>
    <provider name="ProductLandingPageSiteMapExportProvider" type="Sana.Commerce.Sdk.SiteMap.Providers.ProductLandingPageSiteMapExportProvider, Sana.Commerce.Sdk" batchSize="1000" priority="0.5" changeFrequency="daily"/>
    <provider name="ProductListPageSiteMapExportProvider" type="Sana.Commerce.Sdk.SiteMap.Providers.ProductListPageSiteMapExportProvider, Sana.Commerce.Sdk" batchSize="1000" priority="0.5" changeFrequency="daily"/>
</providers>
</task>

Check the following configuration nodes and modify them if needed:

Configuration nodes Description
time/interval the daily time or period (in seconds) when the 'Sitemap Export' task should be performed
websiteCode   the code of the webshop for which the 'sitemap' files will be created. It is selected from the 'Sana Commerce - Sites' configuration section of the 'web.config' file
folderName   the frontend folder where the created 'sitemap' files are stored
allowManualStart   this parameter is 'true' by default and it specifies that the task can be started manually in the backoffice
itemsCountInFile   the number of links which are stored in the 'sitemap' file. Maximum value: 50000
compress this parameter is 'true' by default and it specifies that the 'sitemap' files will be compressed as a 'gzip' file. Each 'sitemap' file must have not more than 50,000 URLs and must not be larger than 10Mb

The providers should be configured for each type of page which is available for indexing.

The description of the configuration nodes of the providers is given in the table below:

Node Required Description
batchSize Yes The quantity of items which are handled in one batch.
priority No The priority of the URL in relation to other URLs on the webshop. This allows shop administrators to specify which pages have more importance.
The valid range is from '0.0' to '1.0' with increment of '0.1', where '1.0' is the most important. The default value is '0.5'.
Rating all webpages with a high priority will not have any effect on the search.
The default priority of a page is '0.5'.
changeFrequency No How frequently the page may change: 
  • always
  • hourly
  • daily
  • weekly
  • monthly
  • yearly
  • never

'Always' is used to mark webpages that change each time when they are accessed. 'Never' is used to mark archived URLs (for example files that will not be changed again).

lastmodified No The date when the file was last modified. This can be the full date and time or simply the date in the format YYYY-MM-DD.
  • Create the folder where the 'sitemap' files will be stored.

    Give the SC_Webuser 'Modify' rights to the folder where the created 'sitemap' files are stored.

When the 'sitemap' file has been created and placed on the webserver, you need to inform the search engines that support this protocol of its location. You can do this by specifying the location of the sitemap using the 'robots.txt' file, which must be placed in the root of the webshop hierarchy. To do this, add the following line to the 'robots.txt' file including the full URL to the sitemap depending on the configured 'folderName':
Sitemap: http://www.webshop.com/sitemap/siteindex.xml

For more information about sitemaps please visit this website: http://www.sitemaps.org/protocol.php

For more information about logging in task scheduler read this chapter.

InstallationSingle Server Deployment