Creating Sitemaps

Site maps are an accurate way for search engines to index all of your web pages. The main function of any search engine is to bring the most accurate search results possible. While the old html site maps provided a general indexing function it did not provide Google and Yahoo with the detailed information they need when the spider visits your web site.

Site maps provide additional information such as when a web page was modified, how frequently the page is updated and how you give priority to specific pages. If you update an important page daily then you can add information to the site map informing the search engines so they will come back and spider more often.

You can create Google site maps on your desktop with software or you can use an online service. You need to bear in mind that not all search engines recognise the exact same site map files. Google prefers XML, Yahoo prefers .txt and some of the other search engines prefer ROR files. Many affiliates make the big mistake of creating the xml file for Google and think this will be fine for all the other search engines.

This is not the case so you need to ensure that when you submit your sitemap to the major search engines you double check to make sure the file is the correct one otherwise it will be ignored and your web site pages will not be indexed.

The software and online options for creating site maps are both free. If you are creating a sitemap just for Google then the software option will be fine. If you are submitting to the other major search engines which you should be doing anyway then the online service is the best option.

I have been personally using the Vigos Gsitemap software for a few years and have never experienced any problems. It is easy to use and can spider and generate a Google sitemap in a matter of seconds.

The online option is just as quick and will generate four different sitemaps for your web site in a matter of seconds. This is a really cool resource that many affiliates do not know about. This online sitemap generator will create an xml site map for Google, a .txt sitemap for Yahoo and an ROR sitemap file which will be suitable for the smaller search engines. The last sitemap is the general html sitemap we all used to create and still should because this is ideal for search engines such as MSN who do not currently accept xml sitemap files.

All these four files are created on the fly right before your eyes. You simply download each file in turn and save them in your web sites directory. Upload them to the server using your html editor or ftp software and you are ready to submit them to Google and Yahoo.

Resources:
Vigos Gsitemap Software
XML Sitemaps

A video tutorial on creating sitemaps is available to members of The Inner Circle.