Setting Individual Attributes
« on: March 31, 2009, 03:52:38 PM »
Hi,

I want to be able to set the priorities for my site.

I would like all:
My Sections (e.g. Gifts for Women) as one priority
Sub Sections (e.g. Gifts for Women/Gift baskets) as another
Then all products as another

How do I do this?  I'm not sure what a url substring is or how to find it and I only want to select these items and give them a priority - do I have to put a frequency and last update in?  If I do, how does that work as surely the last update would change each time and I don't want to have to keep going in to change it.

I know this may be simple to some, but not to me  ::)

Thanks
Re: Setting Individual Attributes
« Reply #1 on: March 31, 2009, 11:51:27 PM »
Hello,

> do I have to put a frequency and last update in?
You can skip the last update time.


You specify the part of URL that will be affected and attributes you want to assign to them. For instance, this thread URL is: https://www.xml-sitemaps.com/forum/index.php/topic,2836.html and subforum is: https://www.xml-sitemaps.com/forum/index.php/board,1.html

You can define them as (notice the udpate time is skipped):
forum/index.php/topic,2836.html,,weekly,0.3
forum/index.php/board,1.html,,daily,0.9

Re: Setting Individual Attributes
« Reply #2 on: April 01, 2009, 02:20:38 PM »
Thanks for that, I'm slowly getting there.

Can I first just check - I understand the attributes to be the priority status given in the sitemap for the importance of that page - is that right? If that's right why would I need a frequency? Can I leave that out as well? I have set up a cron job for it to be looked a weekly, but whenever it is looked at, I would want those particular pages to be the priorities I set at all times.

Is there not a way to generalise to say all sections are 0.9, all subsections are 0.8 etc which is really why I bought the generator to save me having to list everything and prioritising individually and also it is easy to forget new items and add them to the list as your site gets bigger.

Also, in the Configuration - when setting the priority, is that for your starting url (i.e. your index page?)
What happens if you do not tick the 'Automatic Priority' box how does it prioritise then?
Would you need this ticked or unticked if you assign individual attributes?

I cannot find any info anywhere that clearly explains this.

Thanks
Re: Setting Individual Attributes
« Reply #3 on: April 02, 2009, 01:14:15 AM »
Hello,

1. yes, priority tells how importan is that page *comparing to other pages on your site*.

2. frequency tells *approximately* how often the content on that page changes, to give an idea for google bot how often to revisit that page (it's not a directive but just a hint for google though).

3. in case if there is something in common in URLs of your sections, it's possible. For instance, if your sections links are:
domain.com/section-1/
domain.com/section-2/
etc.

then you can define attribute as a *common substring* for all those links:
section-,1.0.html,,daily,0.9

4. Also, there is an "automatic priority" otpion that puts priority according to a "depth level", i.e. how far the page is located from homepage (how many clicks are require to get there).

5. The index page gets the higher priority automatically - the value you define in options/

6. With auto priority disabled all pages get the same priority.

7. Individual attributes will work in both cases, overriding the values currently assigned.