There are several ways a search engine can find your site. One way is by adding keyword tags describing your network. A better way is by setting up a discoverable Site Map that will help search engines crawl your Elgg site. In this article, I will demonstrate how to let search engines find your Elgg network without producing unnecessary server load.

Overview

Search Engines crawl sitemaps always. A site map is a list of pages of a web site accessible to crawlers or users. In order to be indexed by a search engine, you must have a site map on your site. There are several plugins that helps you to improve SEO, and Auto SiteMap plugin for elgg is one of those plugins that will increase the visibility of your site.

Benefits of Using a Sitemap

There are several benefits of integrating a sitemap in your elgg network. Some of those benefits are:

• Top positions on search engines results
• Increase traffic, which will translate in a user registration growth
• It is an affordable strategy to promote your site
• Helps to make your elgg network more navigable for users

Getting Started

1. Download Auto Sitemap Plugin for elgg. Please select the release compatible with your site before downloading.

2. Upload and install Auto Sitemap in the Mod folder of your network. If you need assistance with this process, please read this article.

3. Log into your elgg network with the Administrator account and open the Admin Dashboard. Then, go to menu “Configure -> Plugins“:

4. Find the “Auto Sitemap 1.9” plugin and activate it:

5. Before Sitemap works, we have to add some lines of code to the .htacces file of your elgg network. Open the .htaccess file using an FTP manager. Also, you can use the File Manager of the cPanel of your hosting account.

Important: The .htaccess is in the main folder of your elgg installation.

6. Go to the end of the file and add the following lines:

RewriteRule ^sitemap.xml$ auto_sitemap/index [L]        

RewriteRule ^sitemap.xsl$ mod/auto_sitemap/views/default/auto_sitemap/sitemap.xsl [L]

RewriteRule ^sitemapindex.xsl$ mod/auto_sitemap/views/default/auto_sitemap/sitemapindex.xsl [L]

7. After saving the changes done to the .htaccess file, go back to the Administration Dashboard, and go to menu “Configure -> Settings ->Auto Sitemap“:

8. Add to the plugin the following items that you want to add to the sitemap:

• User Profiles
• Group Profiles
• Blog Posts
• Uploaded files

This will increase the visibility of your elgg network:

9. And that’s it! Your elgg network has a dynamic sitemap now!

This Concludes Let Search Engines Find Your Elgg Network!

Looking for quality Elgg Hosting? Look no further than Arvixe Web Hosting!

Happy Hosting!

Rodolfo Hernandez