XML Sitemap Plus Generator & Splitter

XML Sitemap Generator & Splitter is currently helping many stores (with few hundreds to thousands of SKUs) in improving their Search Engine indexing and visibility.
We couldn’t be any more excited to finally unveil improved Cueblocks' XML Sitemap PLUS Generator & Splitter.

Here's how you can use the new version of our XML sitemap extension to better manage your e-commerce Magento store's XML Sitemaps:

• Category path for product urls/links:
  As you may already know, you can choose to include or exclude category path in product urls from System > Configuration > Catalog > Search Engine Optimization tab. Thus a new product that you add to your store, can be accessed using multiple URL versions. Obviously, you wouldn't want to serve multiple URL versions of same product to Search Engines as this may cause duplication issues in Google's index.
  With XML Sitemap Plus Generator & Splitter, you can now choose which version of your product urls you would like to be included in your XML Sitemap. You can either include the product page URL with category path (canonical) or Category path URL or both.
  Note: From SEO standpoint, we strongly recommend that you only include product page URLs (which is the default setting of our extension). We encourage you to activate canonical meta tag for your product pages in case you do use categories path in your product urls.
• Divide Sitemap by Category (Top Category or Top & Sub Category):
  It is now possible to create separate XML sitemaps for every category. This feature allows to divide the sitemaps by 'top category' (first level category) or by any category/sub category.
• Divide Sitemap by Manufacturer:
  This feature will all you to create XML sitemaps based on the "Manufacturer" attribute of products.
• Real Last Modification date:
  'mod date' value in XML Sitemap tells Search Engines about when was the content on a page last updated. 'mod date' helps Search Engines in calculating their crawl frequency. You can now specify if you want the extension to automatically include the 'Mod date' value or to use the date when the sitemap was generated.
• Generate Image Sitemap:
  You can now also create image sitemap as per Google's protocol along with a regular sitemap. The Image sitemap type will include the image information with your product urls.
• Generate Mobile Sitemap :
  A Mobile Sitemap is a separate XML sitemap which contains URLs that serve mobile web content. Using 'XML Sitemap Plus Generator & Splitter', you can now generate a Mobile Sitemap as per Google's recommended format in addition to regular or mobile or both sitemaps.
• New plugin to include urls from AW Blog!:
  If you are using AW Blog extension and would like those urls to be included in the XML sitemaps, you can do that by adding our plugin! Please note that the plugin only works with XML Sitemap PLUS Generator & Splitter - and it is free!
• Catalog based on Store View:
  'XML Sitemap PLUS Generator & Splitter' will now allow you to filter the products and category urls at Store View level, in case you are using different Category Root at Store View level.
• Checks for and notifies missing URL Rewrite:
  In Magento, when the URL rewriting is not enabled Magento URLs look like this: www.yourstore.com/catalog/product/view/id/166 or catalog/category/view/id/10. If you have URL rewrite enabled, Magento rewrites URLs in a user and search engine friendly version, such as www.yourstore.com/category-name/product-name.html. When'XML Sitemap PLUS Generator & Splitter' generates your XML sitemaps, it will check all the URLs in the XML sitemap and notifies you if it encounters an entry with missing URL rewrite.
• Respects your robots.txt rules!:
  You can now generate XML sitemaps and exclude paths that you have disallowed in your robots.txt for all bots. (It respects rules set for user-agent: * )

We’d love to hear your thoughts on how we could improve it further to make 'XML Sitemap PLUS Generator & Splitter' more useful for your Magento store.

How to use this extension?

1. Step 1: Setup Extension Configuration. This first step is optional because we have set default configuration values on the setting page in a way that it fulfills most of your store's XML Sitemap requirements; but it's always good to check the configuration settings of the extension to know how the XML Sitemap will be generated. To go to the configuration page, from the Magento Admin Panel, go to System > Configuration. On the left navigation of this page, you will find 'XML Sitemap Plus Generator & Splitter', under CUEBLOCKS. Set the extension configuration as per requirement. Make sure that you enter the email address(es), where you would like to receive Sitemap Summary each time sitemap is generated or updated.
2. 
   Step 2: Go to Add Sitemap. Go to manage sitemaps from Magento Admin Panel top navigation: Catalog > 'Magento XML Sitemap Plus Generator & Splitter'. Click on 'Add Sitemap' button on the top-right hand corner of this screen.
   
3. 
   Step 3: Generate New Sitemap. Enter 'File name of your XML Sitemap', Root location & select store view and click on 'Save & Generate' butto. That's it. It's done. Your XML Sitemap will be generated and get listed on the 'Manage Sitemap' screen.