TIP: Generate a dynamic sitemap of events « Events Made Easy support

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TIP: Generate a dynamic sitemap of events

(7 posts) (2 voices)

Started 1 year ago by tomchubb
Latest reply from Franky

Tags:

sitemap

tomchubb
Member

I know there are a lot of questions over whether sitemaps are required or not which is why I accept Franky's decision to prevent this from being a feature, however I wanted to ensure that my events were all submitted to Google via a dedicated events sitemap and thought I'd share my solution hoping that it may help someone.

I know it's messy and any suggestions are welcome:

<?php require('wp-blog-header.php'); ?>
<?php include('http://www.yourdomain.com/wp-content/plugins/events-made-easy/eme_functions.php'); ?>
<?php
ob_start(); // Turn on output buffering
$eme_sitemap_data = eme_get_events_list('limit=0&scope=all&order=DESC&format=<url>' . "\n" . ' <loc>#_EVENTPAGEURL</loc>' . "\n" . ' <priority>0.7</priority>' . "\n" . '</url>');
$sitemap = ob_get_contents();
ob_end_clean();

// Build XML Sitemap
$sitemap_data = "<?xml version=\"1.0\" encoding=\"UTF-8\"?>\n" . "<urlset xmlns=\"http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9\">" . $sitemap . "\n" . "</urlset>"; ?>
<?php
// Write to XML file
$myFile = "events-sitemap.xml";
$fh = fopen($myFile, 'w') or die("can't open file");
fwrite($fh, $sitemap_data);
fclose($fh);
echo "Sitemap generated";
?>

Then you can set a scheduled task to run the script every hour or so...

Posted 1 year ago #
Franky
Key Master

Hmm ... I don't recall ever saying anything specific about sitemaps, but anyway: thanks for the tip!

Posted 1 year ago #

tomchubb
Member

OK - I completely re-wrote this as I wanted to show the modified date in the <lastmod> tag as there was no EME placeholder to use. (I'm using the value from modif_date in the eme_events table.)

Here's my next version:

<?php
require('/path/to/httpdocs/wp-blog-header.php');
global $wpdb;

$sql = "SELECT * FROM " . $wpdb->prefix . "eme_events ORDER BY 'wp_eme_events'.'event_start_date' DESC";
$events = $wpdb->get_results($sql);  // Run our query, getting results as an object
	if (!empty($events)) { // If the query returned something

		$header = "<?xml version=\"1.0\" encoding=\"UTF-8\"?>\n" . "<urlset xmlns=\"http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9\">\n";
		$urls = "";
		$footer = "</urlset>";
		foreach ($events as $event) {  // Loop though our results!
			// Build Sitemap Elements
			$locurl = "http://www.yourdomain.com/events/$event->event_id/$event->event_slug";
			// Format the date
			$lastmod = date('Y-m-d', strtotime($event->modif_date));
			// Concatenate List of URLs
			//$urls .= '	<url>' . "\n" . '		<loc>' . $locurl . '</loc>' . "\n" . '		<priority>0.5</priority>' . "\n" . '		<lastmod>' . $lastmod . '</lastmod>' . "\n" . '	</url>' . "\n";
			$urls .= "	<url>\n		<loc>$locurl</loc>\n		<priority>0.5</priority>\n		<lastmod>$lastmod</lastmod>\n	</url>\n";
		 }
	// Print Sitemap
	$xmlsitemap = $header . $urls . $footer;
	//echo $xmlsitemap;
	} 

// Write to file
$myFile = "/path/to/httpdocs/sitemap.xml";
$fh = fopen($myFile, 'w') or die("can't open file");
fwrite($fh, $xmlsitemap);
fclose($fh);
echo "Sitemap Updated";

?>

Posted 1 year ago #

Franky
Key Master

I edited it because of backtick problems, you might want to review the resulting code (no telling what got lost because of bbpress issues with backticks)

Posted 1 year ago #
Franky
Key Master

I just took another look at this, and was wondering: if you submit this to google, why not just submit the RSS feed with "scope=all" to google (which seems an accepted format as well)?
I can add the code of course, but need to understand this :-) Also: your query doesn't take into account private events.

Posted 4 weeks ago #
tomchubb
Member

Hi Franky,
The reason for this was that my events weren't getting indexed by Google.
After submitting a Sitemap to Google Webmaster Tools then the events started getting indexed.
I can't 'guarantee' that was the reason, but it certainly made it easier to see that events were getting added. Also it allowed me to tell google how often to re-index and when the last modified date was.
Thanks,

Tom

Posted 3 weeks ago #
Franky
Key Master

Yes, I know why you created the sitemap, but why not submit an RSS feed?

Posted 3 weeks ago #

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