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Google Sitemaps is a simple and fast way for your site to
be constantly indexed and updated by Google.
This article will discuss the benefits of implementing this
new technology, who should use it, how it works and how to
create a Google Sitemap for your web site. |
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Benefits of having a Google Site Map
1. Speeds up the discovery and addition of your web
pages in the Google index.
2. Enables Google to quickly find web pages that have
been recently changed.
3. A method for your site to be listed and appear quickly
in Google.
4. Helps Google to keep search content fresh, so people
have the most up to date information available.
Who should use Google Sitemaps?
All site owners can use Google sitemaps whether you
have one page or millions of pages, however it's mostly
geared towards people that make frequent changes to
their web pages.
Normally web pages on a large site will not all get
indexed because the links are too deep within the site.
By including all your pages in the Google Sitemap you
have a better chance of them all being indexed as Google
thrives on fresh content. According to Google, it won't
increase your site's rankings.
How does it work?
Google sitemaps are created using XML (Extensible Markup
Language). This is a coding language similar to HTML(though
a little more complex). It is often used these days
in syndicated feeds or blogs.
Here is the sample XML code you would include for each
page of your site:
<.url><.br> <.loc>http://www.yoursite.com/<./loc>
<.lastmod>2005-07-15
<.changefreq>monthly<./changefreq>
<.priority>0.5<./priority>
<./url>
(remove periods for code to work)
Here is a breakdown of what each line represents:
location - name of your webpage ie http://www.yoursite.com
last modified - when you last modified the page.
change frequency - tells Google how often you modify
that particular page, whether it's never, weekly, daily,
hourly, monthly or yearly.
priority - sets the priority you want Google to place
for that page on your site. You can prioritize your
pages: 0.0 being the least, 1.0 being the highest, 0.5
is in the middle.
This is only relative to your site. It will not affect
your rankings. Certain pages on your site may have more
significance than others because they are updated more
often ie home page, articles page.
How to Create a Dynamic Google SiteMap XML File
It would take a long time to create your Google Sitemap
by hand especially if you have a site that contains
1000s of pages.
Fortunately Google provides the Sitemap Generator that
allows you to generate a sitemap very quickly. It's
a Python script that creates a Sitemap for your site
using the Sitemap Protocol. This script can create Sitemaps
from URL lists, web server directories, or from access
logs.
You can read more about it here:
https://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/login
Other Sitemap Generators.
Google has also compiled a list of third party generators.
Personally I use the free sitemap generator It's simple
to use and quickly produces the necessary XML code for
your site.
Here are the steps on how to create your Sitemap
using this free Sitemap Generator:
1. Go to http://www.sitemapspal.com and enter your
site's address.
2. Copy the code that it generates for your site and
paste it into notepad.
3. Save the text file as sitemap.xml
4. Upload this file to the root directory (same place
as your home page) of your web server.
5. Open up a Google Site Map account and submit your
site's address.
6. Every time you modify a page or pages, login to your
Google account and click on the resubmit button.
7. Repeat this procedure for all of your web sites.
Conclusion
Google is still the largest and most accessed search
engine on Net. Each year millions of web sites get added
to Google making your site harder to find. Creating
a Google Sitemap will help your web pages stay fresh
in Google's index.
About The Author
Herman Drost is the Certified Internet Webmaster (CIW)
owner and author of http://www.iSiteBuild.com.
Affordable Web Site Design and Web Hosting.
You can read more of his in-depth articles at: http://www.isitebuild.com/articles
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Herman_Drost
http://EzineArticles.com/?Create-a-Google-Sitemap-for-Your-Web-Site&id=61705
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