Site Maps For Google

If you want to improve your search engine rankings and increase the number of pages indexed on your website, you really need to start developing engine site maps. Unlike a standard site map made for human visitors, a search engine site map is an text file (usually xml or .txt) which passes information to the search engine crawlers when they come to visit your site. In doing so you help the engine to know which pages are more important, which pages should be indexed and how often, and just as important, which pages should not be indexed and/or crawled. This will contribute to much better results being shown to potential visitors who find your website via Google. And in some cases this can enhance actual page rankings too, by directing Google to the "correct page" thus reducing the issue of duplicate content.

[caption id="attachment_407" align="alignright" width="280"] Site Maps For Google[/caption]

How to start all - First off you should visit Google's own documentation on sitemaps. To help get you right to the important stuff I've listed some of the articles you should read.

Creating your SiteMap - Now, for a small website with only ten pages you may be willing to hand code your site map using the rules provided by Google (see Google documentation). But once you get in to dozens of pages or hundreds or more.... well then, that's just not going to happen. So what can you do? There are plenty of sites out there ready to take your money to produce your sitemap for you.... Don't Do It! They will simply be using one of the many free sitemap generators out there which will automatically do the job for you. Usually I like to give you readers a choice,,,, let you decide which option is best for a particular solution. In this case I'm not.

I've tried tons of these sitemap applications and I'm convinced that GSiteCrawler (look it up in Google) is so much better that I cannot condone the use of another. It does everything quickly and easily. It even uploads your files to your server right through the application. AND IT'S 100% FREE, though the kind author of this program does accept donations if you're feeling generous, and after using his product I think you'll want to toss him a gratuity. This program will do much more for you than just producing a Google site map. It also produces site maps for Yahoo, exports HTML url lists, creates RSS feeds and ROR files, and much more. So to sum it up... rather than explaining all the different methods you might use to develop a sitemap, I'm just going to say "Use the GSiteCrawler". 

Submitting Your SiteMap - The best way to go about this step is to sign up for Google Webmaster Tools. This is a service provided by Google which will help a webmaster to monitor Google's activities on their website. Tons of great information is provided like crawl rates, missing urls, page rankings, blocked urls, bot instructions, url removals, and much much more. For the purposes of this post the most important feature is the ability to submit your site map to Google. To do this you will apply for a sitemap verification code for you particular url. Google will then ask you to place that code either as a tag within your home page or as a "dummy" page on your main directory. Once you do that and your site is verified by Google then you're sitemap will be actively searched by GoogleBot each time it comes to visit your site. 

Maintenance - Once you've created and submitted your first sitemap you don't need to do much to maintain it. Just make sure that whenever you delete or add pages to your website, that you re-run your GSiteCrawler and upload the new map (it will automatically ping Google to say "Hey, a new sitemap has been uploaded"). Aside from that, just drop by your Google Webmaster Tools account now and again to see if it has issued any "error" or "warning" messages to you. If it has, then simply rectify whatever has upset it. That is one of the great things about the Google Webmaster Tools accounts, is having actual feedback from Google so when you make an error, you actually know about it. 

Happy SiteMap Building!