"Google SiteMaps - Get ALL Your Pages Listed!"
By Robert Fuess |
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Google has a new trick! Don't get left behind! It's the
hottest thing since RSS.
I was working on my Google AdWords campaign for
http://www.SchoolAndTeacher.com and I noticed that Google had a
new feature called "Google Sitemap". It was a perfect fit with
my needs. I was concerned with how deep Google would be able
to get into my site. Teachers are able to have homework posted
daily on my site but will Google see the daily changes? Now
they can. When a new teacher signs up, how many months will it
be before Google recognizes it? With Google Sitemap, Google can
be informed about new pages quickly and when a page last changed.
If you have a website and want Google to know about ALL the pages
in your site, build a Google Sitemap. That's it. Keep
reading, since I will show you how to do so, and where it proves
most useful.
Webmasters (like me) have been frustrated by the slow
methodological way in which Google gradually finds the pages in
your site. If your site starts out big and has a lot of dynamic
pages, then this is unacceptable. Hurray for Google! They are
listening.
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Many webmasters like using DHTML menus, but are concerned about
the search engines finding all the pages. This will help Google
to find them. (In reality, I would still recommend having a
regular site-map to help the other search engines find the rest
of your pages. Google may drive the most traffic but customers
coming in through any search engine are welcome. Don't throw
this away.)
DO WE KEEP OUR OLD SITE MAPS?
Yes! The Google Sitemap is not useful to your normal human user
just to Google. (It is in XML format, not HTML.) Also remember
that other search engines (like Yahoo and MSN) don't use this
type of site map yet. Hopefully they will.
BUT I DON'T WANT TO USE XML
You can just provide a text document with the list of URL's. This
will help Google find your pages, but will not help Google
effeciently decide on what to spider. I would strongly
encourage you to build an XML version of google sitemap.
BENEFITS OF USING THE XML VERSION:
1. Google can know what pages have changed and not have to re-crawl
those pages that haven't changed.
2. If you have a lot of pages and Google doesn't have time to crawl
all of your pages all right away, it will focus on the ones that
changed according to your priority.
3. Google is your friend. If they want information on how to
efficiently crawl your site give it to them.
WHAT TO SUBMIT?
You may submit a sitemap, or an index of your sitemaps. Either
will do. Google has documentation on both. (Don't worry about
the index yet. That is addressed at the end of this article.)
I BUILT ONE - NOW HOW DO I SUBMIT IT?
First TELL GOOGLE IT EXISTS
1. Upload your Sitemap to your site to the highest folder in your
website.
2. Sign into Google Sitemaps with your Google Account. (Use this
link: https://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/login )
3. Click on "Add a Sitemap" link.
4. Type the URL to your Sitemap location.
Congratulations! Google now knows about it!
Now tell Google whenever something changes. It will check this
sitemap to see where the changes are.
Quick and Easy Way:
Type the following into the address section of your browser:
http://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/ping?sitemap=
http://www.YourDomain.com/YourSitemap.xml
Of course, you should replace the YourDomain.com with your domain
and YourSitemap.xml with your sitemap.
If you have a dynamically built site then you would want to
automate this using screen scraping techniques.
HOW OFTEN TO SUBMIT?
Ideally, it should be submitted when changes are made.
Personally, I would avoid doing so more than once per day.
However, we will look to Google as they may provide further
guidance on this. Search engines are our friends, and we should
be respectful of abusing any service they provide or making them
process things needlessly.
WILL THIS IMPROVE MY GOOGLE RANKING?
Google doesn't make any promises of this. This is mainly a way
for Google to find your pages, and to efficiently know what pages
need to be re-crawled on your website. If your site makes
frequent changes, this feature helps Google to know about them
more quickly. It won't have to spider through your whole site
to find the changes.
HOW MANY URLs CAN I HAVE IN A GOOGLE SITEMAP?
According to Google documentation, you may have up to 50,000. If
you anticipate more than this, then you should build several
sitemaps and use a Google Sitemap Index. This Index will point
to the several sitemaps. If you want more information on the
Sitemap Index, go to:
http://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/docs/en/protocol.html#s
itemapFileRequirements
FOR more information, please refer to Google Documentation at
http://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/docs/en/about.html
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Robert Fuess is a website designer, who focuses on
developing SEO friendly, database-driven websites (such
as shopping carts). If you are interested in a dynamic
website that has a Google Sitemap automatically generated
and submitted to Google, call me at (805) 720-0789 or
email me at: mailto:robert@spiderweblogic.com.
http://www.spiderweblogic.com/
