TAG | Search engines
A Google Sitemap isn’t an ordinary sitemap designed for humans to read. It’s an XML document designed to help Google’s bot index every page on your site as efficiently as possible.
Google, Bing, Yahoo and Ask all use the same protocol, so you need only create one XML sitemap.
There are a number of reasons why a Google sitemap is a useful addition to your site…
- Tell Google to revisit your site and add new pages and changes to its index (used in conjunction with a Google Webmaster Account)
- Submit a site to Google for the first time (via a Google Webmaster Account)
- Use it in conjunction with robots.txt to ensure the site is indexed correctly
- Sites that make heavy use of Ajax, Flash and/or Silverlight have a hard time getting indexed correctly. An XML sitemap ensures every page is visited by the bot (page content is another matter)
- Sites with long-winded virtual URLs containing codes and ids can ensure Google indexes them correctly
- Sites with multiple URL formats can ensure Google doesn’t punish them with a duplicate content penalty (in conjunction with robots.txt)
- The sitemap helps Google find pages more than 2 links from the homepage
All things considered, an XML sitemap is a useful thing to have if your site contains a lot of links. Or if your site isn’t being indexed correctly by Google.
The question is, how do create a Google sitemap? And what the heck is XML?
The good new is, you don’t need to know anything about XML to create a sitemap for Google, Bing, Yahoo and Ask. All you need is this free XML sitemap creator.
You may have noticed some of the benefits of an XML sitemap are best realised in conjunction with a Google Webmaster Account. I recommend you also open a webmaster account, and register your site(s) with it.
A Google Webmaster Account is an excellent way to submit a new site to Google, find out whether or not Google has a problem with your site, and gain access to very useful information about how your site is doing. A webmaster account also links to additional information, services and resources. You can pick up a Webmaster account here.
Once you have a Webmaster account, click the ‘Help’ link at the top of the page. You’ll find everything you need to know in Google’s extensive help system.
