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    4. Is there a way for me to automatically download a website's sitemap.xml every month?

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    Is there a way for me to automatically download a website's sitemap.xml every month?

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    • DeptAgency
      DeptAgency last edited by

      From now on we want to store all our sitemap.xml over the next years. Its a nice archive to have that allows us to analyse how many pages we have on our website and which ones were removed/redirected.

      Any suggestions?

      Thanks

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • fablau
        fablau @DeptAgency last edited by

        If you use a MySQL database to store your website data, I think that to do this kind of automatic "archival" work by creating an automatic PHP script would take between 2 to 5 hours work. I don't see why it should take more than that.

        If someone tells you that it is going to take more than that, I would be suspicious. Either the programmer is not good enough, or wants to cheat on you. That unfortunately happens more than you think!!

        Be sure to ask for a step-by-step description of how they plan to complete the job. If you have doubts, please feel free to ask me, I am a pretty expert PHP programmer. I don't work for others, but just for myself (I built and keep tweaking my own websites virtualsheetmusic.com, musicianspage.com and others with very little help from external programmers).

        Good luck!

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
        • DeptAgency
          DeptAgency @fablau last edited by

          Hi Fabrizo,

          How long would it take for a PHP programmer to write this code approximately? Since we would have to outsource this I would like an indication to oversee costs involved.

          Thanks!

          fablau 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • fablau
            fablau last edited by

            The way I would do it would be to make a simple PHP (or Perl) program that every day, week or month (as you may need it), archives your sitemap.xml on a specific directory on your server, and possibly zip it. As a PHP programmer myself, I can tell you that that's really simply to do. Just ask to a PHP programmer, I am sure it will make it in a couple hours!

            DeptAgency 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
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