Sitemap Generation on Azure
Does the new sitemap generation feature in version 7.1 work in azure? When I configure it and click the generate the sitemap button it says Sitemap generated successfully, however nothing is generated in the location I specified.
Hello Jeremy,
Unfortunately, Sitemap Generation is currently not supported on Windows Azure.
I am sorry for any inconvenience this may cause.
Regards,
Angel Moret
Telerik
That would have been something good to note in the documentation.
Is this something that is planned to be fixed? Is there a PITS item for it?
Is it going to be like the search on Azure which has never worked?
Jeremy
You may want to try moving your Sitemap location to inside the App_Data folder.
Azure sets this folder with write permissions by default while the root is not.
I have tried this and get the generated files as expected.
Darrin,
That's good to know except the whole point of this is so that you can hit the regularly scheduled and generated sitemap.xml file with google webmaster tools. I don't think I can hit a generated file inside the App_Data folder with a public url.
You can by using the /Sitefinity/ path which replaces the /App_Data/
For example, if you use website templates and you want access a javascript file there use
/Sitefinity/WebsiteTemplates/Stuff/js/vendor/modernizr.js
or
/Sitefinity/sitemap.gz
Awesome. Great solution, thanks.
Now if only they supported uploading that somewhere or just hosting a service method since redeployment is going to blow these generated sitemaps away.
Jeremy
I took your point about the App_Data folder and looked into things a bit and I have a working solution.
www.sitefinity-stuff.com/.../azure-and-search
Have a read. It mainly about solving the search issue but works for the sitemap as well.
Darrin,
While this works, please keep in mind that Azure cloud roles do not keep their state. Any search indexes that Sitefinity generates will be gone after you do a new deployment or the machine does host updates (windows updates).
The best solution is going to be using a search service like the new Azure Search Service and then creating a search display control in Sitefinity.
I am not well versed in Sitefinity on Cloud Service with worker role machines as I run all my sites on Azure websites. The search indexes are stored on the file system which is persisant. (Its physically separate from the actual IIS server in the Azure architecture) so even if the physical host fails or is updated I don't lose my site or the indexes.
Yes I am interested in the new Azure Search and am wondering if Sitefinity will add a new search provider as an alternative to the Lucene one they have.