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In order to provide the users with the newest and most useful information, search engines give the site owners an opportunity to manage the indexing of their websites themselves. A sitemap (site map) will inform the crawlers about the frequency of site updates, about the most important pages from the point of view of site indexing or other indexing parameters.
A sitemap is a special file that contains information about the site and is designed for managing the indexing of web pages. There are several kinds of sitemaps depending on the sitemap file format: text sitemaps, HTML sitemaps, and XML. XML format is more preferable for web robots, but an HTML sitemap is more convenient for common Internet users, so it is reasonable to use both types of sitemap.
There are several ways to create a sitemap. You can write the sitemap file manually – it is an appropriate way for “advanced” users who have enough knowledge and experience to do it. However in most cases it is more convenient to use special online services for sitemap generation provided by the search engines.
How does a sitemap online generator function?
Online Google Sitemap Generator functions the following way:
- First you state the URL of the site for which you want to create the sitemap file in the Starting URL field.
- Then you fill in the following fields: Change Frequency, Last Modification, Priority. The values of these fields are selected from the drop-down list according to the necessary requirements.
- The next step – click on the Start button, and the sitemap will start being generated. As soon as the sitemap has been generated, the server will offer you to download this file in the required format and copy it into the root directory of the site.
- Then you should go to your Google Webmaster account and add your sitemap URL there (for example, http://site_name/sitemap.xml).
Along with online services provided by the search engines there also exist sitemap generators that can be used on your personal computer. These may be scripts (most often – Perl or PHP) or ready software tools. The user of these scripts and tools requires certain knowledge in the field of programming. However, as soon as the software has generated the sitemap, you should perform the same actions as in the previous case: you should copy the file into the root catalog of the site and show the search engine the path to this file.
How does the sitemap file work?
Contrary to expectations (most likely those of inexperienced website developers) the use of the sitemap file cannot guarantee that the site will be indexed or that it will receive higher rankings in the search results. The use of the sitemap just helps the search robot to better understand the structure of the site, visit all internal links and site pages, even those of them that can be accessed by request or using a form only. Besides, there are several nuances of the sitemap use. For instance, if you assign equally high indexing priority to all pages of the site, it will in fact lead to nothing; it will look as if you have not assigned the priority at all. High priorities of site pages have no direct influence on its PageRank, therefore the priority is established in comparison with the rest of the pages of the same site. You should also tell the difference between the HTML sitemap and the XML sitemap. HTML sitemap simply represents the hierarchical structure of the site, and HTML sitemap file is not interpreted by the search engines.
It is also worth telling a couple of words about the sitemap file updates. Should you re-create the sitemap file after small changes on your site and “feed” it to the search engine? No, you shouldn't, if you arm yourself with a bit of patience and edit the existing file manually. In the sitemap file indexation parameters of each page are enclosed within the tags. Between these tags you can see the URL of the page, its priority and update frequency. To change the URL of the page or to add a new one you should edit this part of the code (the page URL is enclosed withing the tags).
Let us sum everything up. It is worth mentioning the benefits of the sitemap file for the site owner once more:
- increase in probability that all site pages will be indexed by the search engine;
- opportunity to change indexing priority of each page yourself.
TAGS
sitemap,
site map,
sitemap creation,
sitemap service,
google sitemap,
site indexing,
page indexing,
website development,
site structure,
pagerank |
web programming 
