How will Google's Python Sitemap Generator interact with mod rewrite?

[pauldmitri]

In order to build a sitemap that is in line with the accepted Google Sitemap Protol, you can use the Google Sitemap Generator tool, which can be downloaded directly from the /webmaster section of Google.

Ours is a database driven php site that of course generates long giberish-looking URL strings for pages deeper than the homepage and so we are in the process of doing a mod rewrite to create the appearance of URL strings that follow a logical syntax and are spider-friendly.

My question is that if we want to use the Google Sitemap Generator we have to run a Python script to crawl the files on our web server. Will it see the files with their neat-looking mod rewrite URL's, because my understanding is that these URL's don't even really exist, but are rather a sort of shiny "paint job" on the database driven URL's.

Please advise.

[tedster]

From what I read, your concerns are well founded -- url rewriting stands a good chance of not working with Google's Python based sitemap generator. And if your site is truly dynamic, there can be other important issues that make this tool not the right one for you.

However, before submitting the url for your sitemap to Google, you always should do a visual inspection of the generated url list anyway. So why not give it a try and actually see what happens in your case?