Mura CMS

Description

Google Sitemaps are the single best way for ensuring your website is being properly and fully indexed by Google.  Clever Technology has been playing with the Mura plugin architecture for quite a while now, and our first release is something that has already proven popular: automating Google Sitemap creation in Mura CMS.

Installation

To install the Google Sitemaps (GSM) plugin you'll need a version of Sava/Mura Mura CMS that supports plugins.  If you don't find the "Installed Plugins" page mentioned below, you'll have to do it the old fashioned way or update your Mura install.

To install the plugin:

• download the plugin (ctGoogleSitemaps_v1.zip) file
  (Note: you don't need to unzip the file; this is the format Mura CMS Plugins come in).

• login to Mura CMS

• click on Site Settings (top-right on yellow bar)

• click on the Installed Plugins tab

• click on Browse and choose the ctGoogleSitemaps.zip file.

• click on Deploy

The plugin is now installed.  The configuration page will let you choose default settings for the way the GSM plugin deals with individual pages & portals.  The most important setting is the one at the bottom: make sure you check off every site you want to have a sitemap for.

Details

Sitemap.xml location

The actual sitemap.xml file is located in the root Mura web directory for each site.  Remember that for your sitemap.xml file to serve any purpose, it must be registered. See Google's Webmaster/Site owner tools for details on how to do this.

Per-page Settings

You can configure the sitemap settings for a particular page or portal's Change Frequency and Priority under Site Manager » (page) » Extended Attributes » Google Site Maps. For more information regarding these settings, I recommend you visit Google's Sitemaps information page.

Inheritance

Inheritance and include/exclude settings are also found on the Extended Attributes page.

Depending upon how you configured your GSM plugin, all pages/portals are either included or excluded in your sitemap.xml file by default. If you chose to not include all pages and/or portals by default, then you have to include them manually. The reverse is also true if you chose to include all pages by default (in this case, you would have to manually exclude them). Inheritance can also be set, in which case the page will follow up the chain of "parent" pages until it finds an "include me" or "exclude me" setting.

Sitemap updates

Sitemaps are generated according to the settings you chose when installing/configuring the GSM plugin (Update Frequency).

For Daily/Weekly/Monthly updates, only loading this page will refresh the sitemap.xml file more frequently.

If you choose Every Update as your update frequency, the entire sitemap is regenerated every time you publish or delete a page or portal. This can be task intensive for large websites, so it is not recommended in those cases. Besides, you can force an update any time by clicking on one of the above buttons.

Adding sites

When you add a new site to Mura, you must update your GSM plugin to include it. The list of sites that the GSM plugin will be available to is found at the bottom of the plugin's configuration page.

Compatibility

This plugin should be compatible for both earlier versions of Sava when plugins were first added, as well as the latest versions of Mura CMS.  This being said, we obviously haven't tested every version of Sava and Mura that's been released, so the safest bet is to update to the lastest version of Mura CMS.

Support

Please contact the developer for support.

Support