Google Sitemap Ping Success [closed] - php

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I have a php script that creates an xml sitemap. At the end, I use
shell_exec('ping -c1 www.google.com/webmasters/tools/ping?sitemap=sitemapurl');
to submit the updated sitemap to Google Webmaster tools.
Having read the Google documentation, I'm unsure whether I need to do this each time or not. Entering the link in the code manually, results in a success page from google, but using the ping command I receive no confirmation. I would also like to know if there is any way of checking if the command has actually worked.

Answer 1

Here is a script to automatically submit your site map to google, bing/msn and ask:
/*
* Sitemap Submitter
* Use this script to submit your site maps automatically to Google, Bing.MSN and Ask
* Trigger this script on a schedule of your choosing or after your site map gets updated.
*/
//Set this to be your site map URL
$sitemapUrl = "http://www.example.com/sitemap.xml";
// cUrl handler to ping the Sitemap submission URLs for Search Engines…
function myCurl($url){
$ch = curl_init($url);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, 0);
curl_exec($ch);
$httpCode = curl_getinfo($ch, CURLINFO_HTTP_CODE);
curl_close($ch);
return $httpCode;
}
//Google
$url = "http://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/ping?sitemap=".$sitemapUrl;
$returnCode = myCurl($url);
echo "<p>Google Sitemaps has been pinged (return code: $returnCode).</p>";
//Bing / MSN
$url = " https://www.bing.com/webmaster/ping.aspx?siteMap=".$sitemapUrl;
$returnCode = myCurl($url);
echo "<p>Bing / MSN Sitemaps has been pinged (return code: $returnCode).</p>";
//ASK
$url = "http://submissions.ask.com/ping?sitemap=".$sitemapUrl;
$returnCode = myCurl($url);
echo "<p>ASK.com Sitemaps has been pinged (return code: $returnCode).</p>";
you can also send yourself an email if the submission fails:
function return_code_check($pingedURL, $returnedCode) {
$to = "webmaster#yoursite.com";
$subject = "Sitemap ping fail: ".$pingedURL;
$message = "Error code ".$returnedCode.". Go check it out!";
$headers = "From: hello#yoursite.com";
if($returnedCode != "200") {
mail($to, $subject, $message, $headers);
}
}
Hope that helps

Answer 2

Since commands like shell_exec(), exec(), passthru() etc. are blocked by many hosters, you should use curl and check for a response code of 200.
You could also use fsockopen if curl is not available. I'm going to check for the code snippet and update the answer when I found it.
UPDATE:
Found it. I knew I used it somewhere. The funny coincedence: It was in my Sitemap class xD
You can find it here on github: https://github.com/func0der/Sitemap. It is in the Sitemap\SitemapOrg class.
There is a also an example for the curl call implemented.
Either way, here is the code for stand alone implementation.
/**
* Call url with fsockopen and return the response status.
*
* #param string $url
* The url to call.
*
* #return mixed(boolean|int)
* The http status code of the response. FALSE if something went wrong.
*/
function _callWithFSockOpen($url) {
$result = FALSE;
// Parse url.
$url = parse_url($url);
// Append query to path.
$url['path'] .= '?'.$url['query'];
// Setup fsockopen.
$port = 80;
$timeout = 10;
$fso = fsockopen($url['host'], $port, $errno, $errstr, $timeout);
// Proceed if connection was successfully opened.
if ($fso) {
// Create headers.
$headers = 'GET ' . $url['path'] . 'HTTP/1.0' . "\r\n";
$headers .= 'Host: ' . $url['host'] . "\r\n";
$headers .= 'Connection: closed' . "\r\n";
$headers .= "\r\n";
// Write headers to socket.
fwrite($fso, $headers);
// Set timeout for stream read/write.
stream_set_timeout($fso, $timeout);
// Use a loop in case something unexpected happens.
// I do not know what, but that why it is unexpected.
while (!feof($fso)){
// 128 bytes is getting the header with the http response code in it.
$buffer = fread($fso, 128);
// Filter only the http status line (first line) and break loop on success.
if(!empty($buffer) && ($buffer = substr($buffer, 0, strpos($buffer, "\r\n")))){
break;
}
}
// Match status.
preg_match('/^HTTP.+\s(\d{3})/', $buffer, $match);
// Extract status.
list(, $status) = $match;
$result = $status;
}
else {
// #XXX: Throw exception here??
}
return (int) $result;
}
If you guys find any harm or improvement in this code, do not hesitate to open up a ticket/pull request on GitHub, please. ;)

Answer 3

Simplest solution: file_get_contents("https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/ping?sitemap={$sitemap}");
That will work on every major hosting provider. If you want optional error reporting, here's a start:
$data = file_get_contents("https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/ping?sitemap={$sitemap}");
$status = ( strpos($data,"Sitemap Notification Received") !== false ) ? "OK" : "ERROR";
echo "Submitting Google Sitemap: {$status}\n";
As for how often you should do it, as long as your site can handle the extra traffic from Google's bots without slowing down, you should do this every time a change has been made.