Configure the Site Map portlet for search by external search engines

IBM WebSphere Portal provides the Site Map portlet. It serves two purposes:

  • Use the Site Map portlet to navigate the portal site. For more information about this refer to Manage pages.

  • The Site Map portlet enables external search crawlers to collect portal pages more efficiently. This topic gives more information about configuring the Site Map portlet for search by external search engines.

The Site Map portlet generates a list of all public pages of the portal. We can configure the Site Map portlet to determine the limit to the number of links per page. The Site Map portlet lists portal pages to that maximum figure per page and then starts a new page. Set this figure to a maximum of between 100 and 200 links per page for the portal site. The Google search engine recommends even fewer than 100 links per page.

Configure the maximum number of links per page for search of the portal by setting the value for the parameter MAX_LINKS in the portlet preferences. We can do this either by using the administration portlet Manage Portlets or by updating the portlet preferences in the portlet.xml file of the Site Map portlet.

Option Description
Using the administration portlet Manage Portlets Use this option to update the MAX_LINKS parameter for the Site Map portlet. Proceed as follows:

  1. Navigate to the Manage Portlets portlet by clicking Main Menu > Administration > Portlet Management > Applications.

  2. Locate the Site Map portlet by searching for wp.ap.sitemap.

  3. Click the Edit portlet application icon for the Site Map portlet.

  4. Add the MAX_LINKS parameter by typing it in the New parameter: field.

  5. Click OK to save the updates.

Updating the portlet preferences in the portlet.xml file of the Site Map portlet Use this option to set the general default for the parameter MAX_LINKS. Proceed as follows:

  1. Locate the WAR file of the Site Map portlet in the portal installation.

  2. Edit the file portlet.xml in that WAR file.

  3. In the section portlet-preferences set the parameter MAX_LINKS to the required value, for example 100. Refer to this example code snippet: 

    <portlet-preferences>
     <preference>
          <name>MAX_LINKS</name>
          <value>100</value>
     </preference>  
</portlet-preferences>

  4. Redeploy the Site Map portlet.

  5. Restart the portal.

The Site Map portlet lists only public pages of the portal, that is pages, which users can access without logging in to the portal with a user ID and password. Secured portal pages are not available for search by anonymous users and therefore not listed by the Site Map portlet.

Search on the portal by external search engines requires additional configuration. For more details about this refer to Search by external search services.

 

Parent Topic

Search by external search services