Orphan pages, deep links, and search engine traps are culprits of poor site indexing.
The use of Sitemaps can alleviate these situations, at least temporarily, to give you
enough time to fix the root of the problem.
Crawling frequency
One of the biggest benefits of using Sitemaps is in timely crawls or recrawls of your site
or just specific pages. XML Sitemap documents let you tell crawlers how often they
should read each page.
Sites using Sitemaps tend to be crawled faster on Yahoo! and Google. It takes Google
and Yahoo! minutes to respond to Sitemap submissions or resubmissions. This can be
very helpful for news sites, e-commerce sites, blogs, and any other sites that are constantly updating or adding new content.
or just specific pages. XML Sitemap documents let you tell crawlers how often they
should read each page.
Sites using Sitemaps tend to be crawled faster on Yahoo! and Google. It takes Google
and Yahoo! minutes to respond to Sitemap submissions or resubmissions. This can be
very helpful for news sites, e-commerce sites, blogs, and any other sites that are constantly updating or adding new content.
Page priority
As you will see later in this chapter, XML Sitemap Protocol allows webmasters to assign
a specific priority value for each URL in the XML Sitemap file. Giving search engines
suggestions about the importance of each page is empowering—depending on how
each search engine treats this value.
a specific priority value for each URL in the XML Sitemap file. Giving search engines
suggestions about the importance of each page is empowering—depending on how
each search engine treats this value.
Large sites
Using Sitemaps for large sites is important. Sites carrying tens of thousands (or millions)
of pages typically suffer in indexing due to deep linking problems. Sites with this many
documents use multiple Sitemaps to break up the different categories of content.
of pages typically suffer in indexing due to deep linking problems. Sites with this many
documents use multiple Sitemaps to break up the different categories of content.
HTML Sitemaps
Creating HTML Sitemaps can be straightforward for small sites. You can build HTML
Sitemaps using a simple text editor such as Notepad. For larger sites, it may make more
sense to use automated tools that will help you gather all your links. Google suggests
the following:
Offer a site map to your users with links that point to the important parts of your site. If
the site map is larger than 100 or so links, you may want to break the site map into
separate pages.
Sitemaps using a simple text editor such as Notepad. For larger sites, it may make more
sense to use automated tools that will help you gather all your links. Google suggests
the following:
Offer a site map to your users with links that point to the important parts of your site. If
the site map is larger than 100 or so links, you may want to break the site map into
separate pages.
HTML Sitemap Generators
If your site has hundreds or thousands of links, Sitemap generation tools will help you
to create multipage Sitemaps. Some of the tools available for this on the Internet
include:
• XML Sitemap Generator
• AutoMapIt
• Site Map Pro
Most Internet websites are small. Typically, a small business website would have only
a few links, and all the pages would have links to each other. Having a Sitemap in those
cases is still valuable, as most sites on the Internet are not designed by professionals,
nor do they knowingly employ SEO.
to create multipage Sitemaps. Some of the tools available for this on the Internet
include:
• XML Sitemap Generator
• AutoMapIt
• Site Map Pro
Most Internet websites are small. Typically, a small business website would have only
a few links, and all the pages would have links to each other. Having a Sitemap in those
cases is still valuable, as most sites on the Internet are not designed by professionals,
nor do they knowingly employ SEO.
Sitemap Location and Naming
XML Sitemaps can refer only to files in the folder in which they are placed, or files
located in any child folders of that folder. For example, a Sitemap corresponding to a
URL location of http://www.mydomain.com/sales/sitemap.xmlcan refer only to URLs
starting with http://www.mydomain.com/sales/.
located in any child folders of that folder. For example, a Sitemap corresponding to a
URL location of http://www.mydomain.com/sales/sitemap.xmlcan refer only to URLs
starting with http://www.mydomain.com/sales/.
You are also allowed to host Sitemaps on different domains. For this to work, you need
to prove the ownership of the domain hosting the Sitemap. For example, let’s say
DomainA.com hosts a Sitemap for DomainB.com. The location of the Sitemap is http://
domainA.com/sitemapDomainB.xml. All that is required is for DomainB.com to place
this URL anywhere within its robots.txtfile, using the Sitemapdirective.
Although your XML Sitemap can have arbitrary names, the recommended name is
sitemap.xml. Many people choose to name their XML Sitemaps another name. This is
to prevent rogue site scrapers from easily obtaining most, if not all, of the URLs for the
site.