In How to feed all posts on a WordPress blog with link love I’ve outlined a method to create short and topically related paths to each and every post even on a large blog. Since not every blogger is PHP savvy enough to implement the concept, some readers asked me to share the sitemaps script.
Ok, here it is. It wasn’t developed as a WordPress plugin, and I’m not sure that’s possible (actually, I didn’t think about it), but I’ll do my best to explain the template hacks necessary to get it running smoothly. Needless to say it’s a quick hack and not exactly elegant, however it works here with WordPress 2.2.2. Use it as is at your own risk, yada yada yada, the usual stuff.
I’m a link whore, so please note: If you implement my sitemap script, please link out to any page on my blog. The script inserts a tiny link at the bottom of the sitemap. If you link to my blog under credits, powered by, in the blogroll or whereever, you can remove it. If you don’t link, the search engines shall ban you. 
Prerequisites
You should be able to do guided template hacks.
You need a WordPress plugin that enables execution of PHP code within the content of posts and pages. Install one from the list below and test it with a private post or so. Don’t use the visual editor and deactivate the “WordPress should correct invalidly nested XHTML automatically” thingy in Options::Writing. In the post editor write something like
Q: Does my PHP plugin work?
<?php
print "A: Yep, It works.";
?>
(Maybe you need to quote your PHP code with special tags like <phpcode></phpcode>, RTFM.)
Consider implementing my WordPress-SEO tweaks to avoid unnecessary code changes. If your permalink structure is not set to custom /%postname%/ giving post/page URLs like http://sebastians-pamphlets.com/about/ you need to tweak my code a little. Not that there’s such a thing as a valid reason to use another permalink structure …
Download
Don’t copy and paste PHP code from this page, it might not work because WordPress prettifies quotes etcetera. Everything you need is on the download page.
Installation
Copy list_categories.php to your template directory /wp-content/themes/yourtemplatename/ on your local disk and upload it to your server.
Create a new page draft, title it “Category Index” or so, and in page content put
<?php @include(TEMPLATEPATH . "/list_categories.php"); ?>
If anything went wrong, load list_categories.php with your preferred editor (not word processor!). Scroll down to edit these variables:
// Customize if necessary:
//$blogLocaction = “sebastians-pamphlets.com”;
// “www.yourserver.com”, “www.yourserver.com/blog” …
// without “http://” and no trailing slash!
//$rssIconPath = “/img/feed-icon-16×16.gif”;
// get a 16*16px rss icon somewhere and upload it you your server,
// then change this path which is relative to the domain’s root.
$rssIconWidth = 16;
$rssIconHeight = 16;
If you use Feedburner then click the links to the category feeds, Feedburner shouldn’t redirect them to your blog’s entries feed. I’ve used feed URLs which the Feedburner plug-in doesn’t redirect, but if the shit hits the fan search for the variable $catFeedUrl and experiment with the category-feed URLs.
Your sitemap’s URL is http://your-blog.com/sitemap-page-slug/ (respectively your-blog.com/about/sitemap/ or so when the sitemap has a parent page).
In theory you’re done. You could put a link to the sitemap in your sidebar and move on. In reality you want to prettify it, and you want to max out the SEO effects. Here comes the step by step guide to optimized WordPress sitemaps / topical hubs.
Category descriptions
On your categorized sitemap click any “[category-name] overview” link. You land on a page listing all posts of [category-name] under the generic title “Category Index”, “Sitemap”, or whatever you’ve put in the page’s title. Donate at least a description. Your visitors will love that and when you install a meta tag plugin the search engines will send a little more targeted traffic because your SERP listings look better (sane meta tags don’t boost your rankings but should improve your SERP CTR).
On your dashboard click Manage::Categories and write a nice but keyword rich description for each category. When you reference other categories by name my script will interlink the categories automatically, so don’t put internal links. Now the category links lists (overview pages) look better and carry (lots of) keywords.
The sitemap URL above will not show the descriptions (respectively only as tooltip), but the topical mini-hubs linked as “overview” (category links lists) have it. Your sitemap’s URL with descriptions is http://your-blog.com/sitemap-page-slug/?definitions=TRUE (your-blog.com/about/sitemap/?definitions=TRUE or so when the sitemap has a parent page).
If you want to put a different introduction or footer depending on the appearance of descriptions you can replace the code in your page by:
<?php
// introduction:
if (strtoupper($_GET["definitions"]) == "TRUE") {
print "<p><strong>All categories with descriptions.</strong> (Example)</p>”;
}
else {
if (!isset($_GET[”cat”])) {
print “<p><strong>All categories without descriptions.</strong> (Example)</p>”;
}
}
@include(TEMPLATEPATH . “/list_categories.php”);
// footer as above
?>
print statements then prefix them with a slash, for example: print "<em>yada \"yada\" <a href=\"url\" title=\"string\">yada</a></em>."; will output yada “yada” yada.)
Title tags
The title of the page listing all categories with links to the category pages and feeds is by design used for the category links pages too. WordPress ignores input parameters in URLs like http://your-blog.com/sitemap-page-slug/?cat=category-name.
To give each category links list its own title tag, replace the PHP code in the title tag. Edit header.php:
<title>
<?php
// 1. Everything:
$pageTitle = wp_title(“”,false);
if (empty($pageTitle)) {
$pageTitle = get_bloginfo(”name”);
}
$pageTitle = trim($pageTitle);
// 2. Dynamic category pages:
$input_catName = trim($_GET[”cat”]);
if ($input_catName) {
$input_catName = ucfirst($input_catName);
$pageTitle = $input_catName .” at ” .get_bloginfo(”name”);
}
// 3. If you need a title depending on the appearance of descriptions
$input_catDefs = trim($_GET[”definitions”]);
if ($input_catDefs) {
$pageTitle = “All tags explained by ” .get_bloginfo(”name”);
}
print $pageTitle;
?>
</title>
The first statements just fix the obscene prefix crap most template designers are obsessed about. The second block generates page titles with the category name in it for the topical hubs (if your category slugs and names are identical). You need 1. and 2.; 3. is optional.
Page headings
Now that you’ve neat title tags, what do you think about accurate headings on the category hub pages? To accomplish that you need to edit page.php. Search for a heading (h3 or so) displaying the_title(); and replace this function by:
<h3 class=”entrytitle” id=”post-<?php the_ID(); ?>”> <a href=”<?php the_permalink() ?>” rel=”bookmark”>
<?php
// 1. Dynamic category pages
$input_catName = trim($_GET[”cat”]);
if ($input_catName) {
$input_catName = ucfirst($input_catName);
$dynTitle = “All Posts Tagged ‘” .$input_catName .”‘”;
}
// 2. If you need a heading depending on the appearance of descriptions
$input_catDefs = trim($_GET[”definitions”]);
if ($input_catDefs) {
$dynTitle = “All tags explained”;
}
// 3. Output the heading
if ($dynTitle) print $dynTitle; else the_title();
?>
</a>
</h3>
The first block generates headings with the category name in it for the topical hubs (if your category slugs and names are identical). The last statement outputs either the hub’s heading or the standard title if the actual page doesn’t belong to the script. You need 1. and 3.; 2. is optional.
Feeding the category hubs
With most templates each post links to the categories its tagged with. Besides the links to the category archive pages you want to feed your hubs linking to all posts of each category with a little traffic and topical link juice. One method to accomplish that is linking to the category hubs below the comments. If you don’t read this post on the main page or an archive page, click here for an example. Edit single.php, a line below the comments_template(); call insert something like that:
<br />
<p class="post-info" id="related-links-lists">
<em class="cat">Find related posts in
<?php
$catString = "";
foreach((get_the_category()) as $catItem) {
if (!empty($catString)) $catString .= ", ";
$catName = $catItem->cat_name;
$catSlug = $catItem->category_nicename;
$catUrl = "http://your-blog.com/sitemap-page-slug/?cat="
.strtolower($catSlug);
$catString .= "<a href=\"$catUrl\">$catName</a>";
} // foreach
print $catString;
?>
</em>
</p>
Also, if your descriptions are of glossary quality, then link to your category hubs in your posts. Since most of my posts are dull as dirt, I decided to make the category descriptions an even duller canonical SEO glossary. It’s up to you to become creative and throw together something better, funnier, more useful … you get the idea. If you blog in english and you honestly believe your WordPress sitemap is outstanding, why not post it in the comments? Links are dofollowed in most cases.
Troubleshooting
Test everything before you publish the page and link to the sitemaps.
If you have category descriptions and on the sitemap pages links to other categories within the description are broken: Make sure that the sitemap page’s URL does not contain the name or slug of any of your categories. Say the page slug is “sitemaps” and “links” is the parent page of “sitemaps” (URL: /links/sitemaps/), then you must not have a category named “links” nor “sitemaps”. Since a “sitemap” category is somewhat unusual, I’d say serving the sitemaps on a first level page named “sitemap” is safe.
Disclaimer
I hope this post isn’t clear as mud and everybody can install my stuff without hassles. However, every change of code comes with pitfalls, and I can’t address each and every possibility, so please backup your code before you change it, or play with my script in a development system. I can’t provide support but I’ll try to reply to comments. Have fun at your own risk!
If your Technorati reputation factor sucks ass then read on, otherwise happily skip this post. 
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