TIP: Generate a dynamic sitemap of events

[Anonymous]

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&#8217;); ?>

<?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″>&#8221; . $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…

[Franky]

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

[Anonymous]

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";



?>

[Franky]

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)

[Franky]

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.

[Anonymous]

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

[Franky]

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

[Anonymous]

Hello,

The query results “Sitemap Updated” but the sitemap file is empty. Anyone can help me, please?

[Franky]

Please create a new thread for your problem and reference this thread.

[Anonymous]

Hi guys,

Just came across this.

The reason for my code and not the RSS version was the value lastmod wasn’t possible via RSS.

I changed my code again so see below:

<?php

error_reporting('E_ALL'); // Suppress errors on production server

require('/path/to/httpdocs/wp-blog-header.php');

global $wpdb;



//$sql = "SELECT * FROM " . $wpdb->prefix . "eme_events ORDER BY <code>wp_eme_events</code>.<code>event_start_date</code> DESC";

$sql = "SELECT * FROM " . $wpdb->prefix . "eme_events ORDER BY <code>wp_eme_events</code>.<code>event_id</code> DESC LIMIT 5000"; // Show 5000 most recently added to prevent server timeout

$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

$locurl = "http://plainandsimple.tv/event/$event->event_id/$event->event_slug";

// Format the date - also in case some EME Events have 0000-00-00 date format, manually add 1st Jan 2012

if(strtotime($event->modif_date) > strtotime('2010-01-01 00:00')){

$lastmod = date('Y-m-d', strtotime($event->modif_date));

} else {

$lastmod = date('Y-m-d', strtotime('2010-01-01 00:00'));

}



// Make future events higher priority

if(strtotime($event->event_start_date) > strtotime('today')){

$priority = 0.9;

$changefreq = daily;

} else {

$priority = 0.3;

$changefreq = monthly;

}



// Concatenate List of URLs

$urls .= "	<url>n		<loc>$locurl</loc>n		<lastmod>$lastmod</lastmod>n		<changefreq>$changefreq</changefreq>		<priority>$priority</priority>n		</url>n";

}

// Print Sitemap

$xmlsitemap = $header . $urls . $footer;

}



// Encode as UTF8 then Write to file



$myFile = "/path/to/httpdocs/club-listings-sitemap.xml";

$fh=fopen($myFile,"w");

fwrite($fh,utf8_encode($xmlsitemap));

fclose($fh);



echo "Sitemap Updated";

?>

[Anonymous]

This next one generates a sitemap for venues. I changed the query as the lastmod value uses the lastmod value for the most recent event at that venue as this was what I consider to be the latest version of that ‘Page’ as far as google should be concerned:

<?php

error_reporting(E_ALL);

require('/path/to/httpdocs/wp-blog-header.php');

global $wpdb;

//$sql = "SELECT * FROM " . $wpdb->prefix . "eme_locations ORDER BY <code>location_id</code> DESC";



// Note this query will only pull in Locations that have events

$sql = "SELECT loc.location_name, loc.location_id, MAX(ev.modif_date) lastmodif FROM wp_eme_events ev INNER JOIN wp_eme_locations loc ON ev.location_id = loc.location_id GROUP BY ev.location_id";



$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

$name = strtolower($event->location_name);

//Strip any unwanted characters

$name = preg_replace("/[^a-z0-9_s-]/", "", $name);

//Clean multiple dashes or whitespaces

$name = preg_replace("/[s-]+/", " ", $name);

//Convert whitespaces and underscore to dash

$name = preg_replace("/[s_]/", "-", $name);

$locurl = "http://plainandsimple.tv/event-listings/" . $event->location_id . "/" . $name;

if(strtotime($event->lastmodif) > strtotime('2010-01-01 00:00')){

$lastmod = date('Y-m-d', strtotime($event->lastmodif));

} else {

// Format the date in case some EME Events have 0000-00-00 date format, manually add 1st Jan 2012

$lastmod = date('Y-m-d', strtotime('2012-01-01 00:00'));

}



// Concatenate List of URLs

$urls .= "	<url>n		<loc>$locurl</loc>n		<lastmod>$lastmod</lastmod>n		<changefreq>weekly</changefreq>		<priority>0.8</priority>n	</url>n";

}

// Print Sitemap

$xmlsitemap = $header . $urls . $footer;

}



// Write to file

$myFile = "/path/to/httpdocs/club-locations-sitemap.xml";

$fh=fopen($myFile,"w");

fwrite($fh,utf8_encode($xmlsitemap));

fclose($fh);

echo "Sitemap Updated";



?>

Hope someone finds it useful 🙂

[Franky]

Thanks for the contrib Tom, but why not use eme_get_events() for the events query?

[Anonymous]

Because I did it before I’d really tried the eme functions outside of the shortcodes.

Maybe I’ll re-work it and post again.

I should also be using site_url() as well instead of hard-coded URLs.

[Author]

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