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Deploy your thematic XML sitemap

Your Bloomreach thematic pages are dynamic pages that aren't typically included in your site's existing sitemap. By retrieving your thematic page XML sitemap files daily, you optimize search results for your thematic pages' content. This process is a best practice to ensure that search engines find your thematic pages quickly and crawl them frequently.

After you choose a thematic URL pattern for your site, your Bloomreach TPM prepares your sitemap files and sends you the location where you can retrieve them daily. Upon retrieval, you copy the files into your site. Everyday, we update your sitemap files so it's a best practice to retrieve and copy them daily for optimal performance.

XML sitemap contents

The contents of your thematic page XML sitemap depend on the number of live Thematic Pages on your site.

If your site has more than 50,000 Thematic Pages, then your sitemap includes one index file and one or more map files. The index file goes into your site's root directory, and comprises the URLs of your individual map files. Your map files go in the root of your site's Thematic URL pattern.

If your site has fewer than 50,000 Thematic Pages, then your sitemap consists of just one map file. The map file goes into your site's root directory and comprises the URLs of your individual thematic pages.

Compression

Sitemap files are delivered compressed, following the guidelines of major search engines and bots.

If you need to decompress the files, then we recommend that you do so programmatically as part of the API call you use to download your sitemap files.

Naming Conventions

We use the following naming conventions for your sitemap files:

Your index file is th-sitemapIndex.xml.gz.

Your map file is th-sitemap-#.xml.gz, where # varies depending on the number of map files needed for your sitemap. The value of # starts at 0 for the first map and increments by 1 for each additional map file. Your first map file is th-sitemap-0.xml.gz.

How to deploy your thematic page XML sitemap

This process works similarly to the process for delivery your product feed, except in reverse. Instead of you sending Bloomreach files, we send you files, which you retrieve and deploy on your site.

Before you start

Here's what you do:

  • Choose your thematic URL pattern.

Here's what Bloomreach does:

  • Prepare your sitemap files.
  • Send you the location where you can retrieve them.
  • Let you know when to deploy your thematic page XML sitemap.

Aside from informing your Bloomreach TPM when you choose your thematic URL pattern, you don't need to do anything further for this part of your integration until your TPM lets you know it's time to continue. In the meantime, you can continue your API deployment.

Deploy your sitemap

To deploy your thematic XML sitemap, follow the appropriate set of instructions:

  • In general, if your site has fewer than 50,000 live Thematic Pages, then your TPM sends you only one map file and no index file.
  • If your site has more than 50,000 live Thematic Pages products, then your TPM sends you multiple map files and one index file.

Let your TPM know if the files we send to you don't match your expectations.

Deploying only one map file and no index file

  1. Fetch your map file daily from the location that your TPM sends to you.
  2. Copy the map file to your site's root folder.
  3. Edit your site's robots.txt file to add a sitemap entry with the location of your map file. For example:

Sitemap: http://example.com/popular/th-sitemap-0.xml.gz

Deploying multiple map files and one index file

  1. Fetch your map and index files daily from the location that your TPM sends to you.
  2. Copy your index file to your site's root folder.
  3. Add the URL of your index file in Google's Search Console.
  4. Copy your map files to the root of your site's Thematic URL pattern. All of your map files go to the same location.
  5. Edit your site's robots.txt file to add a sitemap entry with the location of your index file. For example:

Sitemap: http://example.com/popular/th-sitemapIndex.xml.gz

Let your TPM know when you're done so we can verify your deployment. Continue retrieving and copying your sitemap files daily to keep your thematic pages optimized for search results.

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New integrations have just one URL in map files

If you're integrating Thematic Pages for the first time, then your maps contain just one URL: your site's homepage. Your launched thematic pages are added to your map files after your Thematic Pages integration is live