Sitemaps have become an SEO tool these days. Search engines cannot reach many kinds of pages easily. The unreachable pages include dynamically generated pages and FLASH and AJAX pages. Sitemaps come to the rescue of Webmasters in such cases.
Using sitemaps, they could tell search engines how to reach all the important pages. E-commerce sites that generate pages on the fly from databases, for example, could use sitemaps to get many more pages indexed. And the more the pages that search engines index, the more traffic you are likely to get.
New websites, whose pages have not yet been indexed by search engines, could tell the engines about all their pages at one go.
What Are Sitemaps?
In earlier days, sitemaps were HTML files that contained a list of links to all pages of a site. It was particularly useful for content sites that discussed various issues on different pages. These sites could use sitemaps to help their visitors see all these issues at a glance and select the particular page they wanted to read. An easily noticed link to the sitemap can then be included on all pages for the benefit of visitors.
E-commerce sites, on the other hand, might have a different orientation. They might prefer their visitors to buy what they sell, instead of wandering all over the site. At the same time, they might want to get all their pages indexed by the engines. To achieve both these objectives, they might include a link to the sitemap page only on the home page, that too in small print at some less noticeable position.
Sitemaps Get Formalized
Sitemaps these days can be XML, ROR or text formatted files. While the text sitemaps are just a list of URLs, the XML and ROR sitemaps provide additional details about each of the URLs.
In the XML sitemap, you can provide information such as the priority of each URL relative to other URLs, the typical frequency of changes to a URL and the last date of its modification. ROR sitemaps allow even more information to be included.
What's Special About New Sitemaps?
An XML sitemap helps the search engines to crawl a site more intelligently. The engines can give greater weight to the more important pages, and can also schedule the crawling to synchronize with the page change frequency. Search engine crawling can thus cater better to Webmaster preferences.
Major search engines like Google, Yahoo, MSN and Ask have adopted a standard XML sitemap protocol. You can also tell the search engines where they can find the sitemap by including a line as follows in your robots.txt file:
Sitemap: http://www.yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml
Submitting Sitemaps Direct to Engines
Google and Yahoo provide facilities that enable you to submit your sitemap direct to them. You log into your Google or Yahoo account and follow the instructions for submitting the sitemaps.
The advantage of this option is that Google and Yahoo provide reports to you about your site. Indexing status, traffic statistics and keywords used to land on your pages are some of the information you could get in this way.
To submit a sitemap direct to Google or Yahoo, follow the procedure below:
1. Upload your XML sitemap to the root directory of your website
2. Go to the relevant page indicated below:
GoogleYahoo
3. Login to your Google or Yahoo account, as applicable
4. Now follow the instructions for submitting your sitemap. Both engines require you to complete a site verification or authentication procedure to check that you are the Webmaster or owner of the concerned site.
5. Once the verification or authentication is complete, they will arrange to crawl your site. Indexing might take time, however.
6. The major benefit is that you would now have access to considerable information about your site.
Using sitemaps, they could tell search engines how to reach all the important pages. E-commerce sites that generate pages on the fly from databases, for example, could use sitemaps to get many more pages indexed. And the more the pages that search engines index, the more traffic you are likely to get.
New websites, whose pages have not yet been indexed by search engines, could tell the engines about all their pages at one go.
What Are Sitemaps?
In earlier days, sitemaps were HTML files that contained a list of links to all pages of a site. It was particularly useful for content sites that discussed various issues on different pages. These sites could use sitemaps to help their visitors see all these issues at a glance and select the particular page they wanted to read. An easily noticed link to the sitemap can then be included on all pages for the benefit of visitors.
E-commerce sites, on the other hand, might have a different orientation. They might prefer their visitors to buy what they sell, instead of wandering all over the site. At the same time, they might want to get all their pages indexed by the engines. To achieve both these objectives, they might include a link to the sitemap page only on the home page, that too in small print at some less noticeable position.
Sitemaps Get Formalized
Sitemaps these days can be XML, ROR or text formatted files. While the text sitemaps are just a list of URLs, the XML and ROR sitemaps provide additional details about each of the URLs.
In the XML sitemap, you can provide information such as the priority of each URL relative to other URLs, the typical frequency of changes to a URL and the last date of its modification. ROR sitemaps allow even more information to be included.
What's Special About New Sitemaps?
An XML sitemap helps the search engines to crawl a site more intelligently. The engines can give greater weight to the more important pages, and can also schedule the crawling to synchronize with the page change frequency. Search engine crawling can thus cater better to Webmaster preferences.
Major search engines like Google, Yahoo, MSN and Ask have adopted a standard XML sitemap protocol. You can also tell the search engines where they can find the sitemap by including a line as follows in your robots.txt file:
Sitemap: http://www.yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml
Submitting Sitemaps Direct to Engines
Google and Yahoo provide facilities that enable you to submit your sitemap direct to them. You log into your Google or Yahoo account and follow the instructions for submitting the sitemaps.
The advantage of this option is that Google and Yahoo provide reports to you about your site. Indexing status, traffic statistics and keywords used to land on your pages are some of the information you could get in this way.
To submit a sitemap direct to Google or Yahoo, follow the procedure below:
1. Upload your XML sitemap to the root directory of your website
2. Go to the relevant page indicated below:
GoogleYahoo
3. Login to your Google or Yahoo account, as applicable
4. Now follow the instructions for submitting your sitemap. Both engines require you to complete a site verification or authentication procedure to check that you are the Webmaster or owner of the concerned site.
5. Once the verification or authentication is complete, they will arrange to crawl your site. Indexing might take time, however.
6. The major benefit is that you would now have access to considerable information about your site.
1 comment:
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