|
/pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js"> |
SEO - Google Sitemaps Explained
Once again I seem to be writing about Google. The reason Google keeps cropping up in these articles is that:
- Google is a innovative company always coming up with new ideas to keep one step ahead of the competition.
- Search Engines are the most important way that most webses generate new traffic.
- Google is the most important of the Search Engines.
Google Sitemaps is an experiment in web crawling. Using Sitemaps to inform and direct our crawlers, we hope to expand our coverage of the web and improve the time to inclusion in our index. By placing a Sitemap-formatted file on your webserver, you enable our crawlers to find out what pages are present and which have recently changed, and to crawl your site accordingly. Google Sitemaps is intended for all web site owners, from those with a single web page to companies with millions of ever-changing pages. If any of the following are true, then you may be especially interested in Google Sitemaps:
? You want Google to crawl more of your web pages.
? You want to be able to tell Google when content on your site changes.
What is a Google Sitemap?
The Sitemap protocol requires the sitemap to be present on your web-server in the form of an XML document. XML is simple code like HTML and it is used to syndicate your content to all interested parties. You may have seen it in use for syndicating weblog entries via RSS to a news-reader. In the case of Google Sitemaps, the XML document is syndicated to Google and their software uses it to ensure that the pages of your website are crawled and indexed.
Before the introduction of Google Sitemaps, website-owners had to rely on the Google robot to find all of a websites links in order to make sure that all the pages were indexed. The introduction of Google Sitemaps now gives website owners some control over this process. In additon, the XML format of the sitemap document also gives you control over several key variables.
If we examine a very simple chunk of code from a basic Google sitemap XML document we can see the variables we now have control over.
http://www.yourdomainname.com/ 1.0 2005-07-06T18:00:00+00:00 weekly
This part of code describes one page of a website, so a typical Google Sitemap document would contain similar chunks of code for every page contained within the website. As you can see each web page has 4 variables:
LOCATION - Simply the URL of the web page.
PRIORITY - A number from 0.0 to 1.0 allowing you to set the priority of a particular page within your website. This number is a relative setting and relates only to those pages within your site. It allows you to instruct Google to pay more attention to particular key pages within your website.
LAST MODIFIED - This tells Google when your web pages were last modified so preventing the robot from having to index pages that haven't changed since its last visit.
CHANGE FREQUENCY - This allows you to tell Google how often the content of a page is likely to change. You can set it to never, yearly, monthly, weekly, daily, hourly and always.
Click here for more information on the XML Protocol used by Google Sitemaps
How do I create a Google Sitemap?
There are a number of ways to create a Google Sitemap document for your website.
The simplest but least controllable way is to use an online XML generator that will spider the pages in your website, and automatically create the XML file for you. With most you then have to upload the file to your web-server and inform Google of its presence. There are plenty of these scripts popping up and many of them are completely free. Select this link for a
The main disadvantage to using these online generators is that they need to be recreated each time you add new pages to your website. This won't be a problem for many website owners who rarely add new pages, but for those who are constantly adding new pages another approach may be better.
If you would like a little more control over the various parameters stored within your Google Sitemap XML document then a script that you configure and then upload to your web-server may be the answer for you. These are written in various scripting languages such as PHP or Perl and give you more control over your Google Sitemap. They do require some knowledge of scripting and installation to get them working which is beyond the scope of this article. Many however can be set up to run at regular intervals and not only spider your complete site and automatically generate your XML Google Sitemaps document but also upload it to the relevant place on your web-server and ping Google to tell them that the sitemap exists.
Finally you could use Googles own Sitemap generator which is a Python script and takes a little more knowledge to install and configure on your web-server. It also requires that Python 2.2 is installed on the server. Select this link for more information on Googles Sitemap Generator
Note: These automatic Sitemap generators work by following the internal links within your website, any orphaned pages that are not linked to will not be included in your sitemap.
How do I submit my Sitemap to Google?
Whichever method you use to generate your Google Sitemaps document, you then need to submit it to Google. Most of the online generators and scripts will either do this for you or give you an option to do it once your XML document has been uploaded.
First, you should create a Google Sitemaps Account (which requires you to have a Google Account). This account enables Google to provide you with useful status and statistical information. The My Sitemaps page lets you know if there are problems with your Sitemap or with any of the URLs listed in it. Your Google Sitemaps account will also allow you to re-submit your Sitemaps document when you make changes to it.
Once your Sitemaps account is set up simply use the online forms to inform Google of the location of your new Sitemaps document and your site will soon be indexed.
Summary
Google Sitemaps give website owners the opportunity to inform Google about all the pages of their website. It should ensure that no pages are missed and also allows a certain degree of control over the relative importance of individual pages. Simply generating a Google Sitemaps document won't necessarily give you higher rankings within the search engines as you will still be competing with other websites for those top spots. Both on page Search Engine Optimisation and off-page promotion will still be essential. However, sitemaps make sure all your pages are crawled and indexed quickly by Google, and may therefore give you a competitive advantage over those websites that don't have a Google Sitemap.
Alan Cole runs http://www.pixelwave.co.uk, a one-person web design studio. His aim is to provide cost effective website design production and maintenance by offering professional web solutions that stand out from the crowd. Increasingly his work involves website promotion and Search Engine Optimisation as well as training courses on all aspects of web design and promotion.
Tops In Toolbars?
Most internet marketers are aware of, and probably use, the Google Toolbar. After all, it has been the only indicator of Google's PageRank number that has been assigned to a given web page. Whether the number is accurate, important, or even updated any more is a matter of debate on the marketing forums. But the only feature that was really worthwhile for more casual surfers, other than being able to use the Google search box directly, was the popup window blocker feature, which oddly enough, is the least favorite feature of many an internet marketer.
Local Search Optimization - A Guide to Getting Started
While searching the web these days, it's hard not to notice all those little Local tabs sprouting up in the vicinity of the search field on virtually every major search engine. Within the past year, the race has been to integrate a plethora of advanced features into local search capabilities.
Linking for Traffic not Positioning!
With more and more experts and search engine enthusiastsclaiming the right way and the wrong way to handle linkswapping, link exchanging or reciprocal linking!
The Myth of Search Engine Submission
Contrary to what most people think, it is not necessary to submit your site to the search engines. In the early days of the web, when search engine technology was still primitive and search engines' ability to crawl the web was somehow limited, it made sense to submit your site.
Finding Targeted Keyword Phrases Your Competitors Miss
Finding Targeted Keyword Phrases Your Competitors Miss
SEO #2: On-page Optimization
Yesterday you should have read the first course out of 6 courses that will help you get a TOP rank in the search engines and get EXPLOSIVE LASER TARGETED TRAFFIC for Free. Today we move on to course #2 and study on-page optimization. Please read today's course very carefully and take some time to test what I'm about to tell you on your own webpage. Alright let's start!
SEO - Get Your Site Out of the Google Sandbox Fast!
Is your new site sitting in the infamous Google "sandbox"? There is a way to get it out fast, as well as getting all of your other pages indexed!
SEO for CEOs ? Search Engine Optimization Unmasked for CEOs
If you're like most other CEOs, the term "search engine optimization" will mean very little. Either that or it means expense! But it doesn't have to be that way? If you feel like you're standing in a dark room handing money to strangers to get you in the search engines, then this article is for you.
Search Engine Visibility - The Mantra of Corporate Profitability
The corporate fundamentals are par excellence! The product is unsurpassable and the website is a web designer's dream in creativity and design ? but there is a vacuum ? of potential online customers! ? The website lacks the basic ingredient of success ? Search Engine Visibility! ? which is what search engine optimization is all about.
Google Rankings ? Achieving a Top 10 Position in Google ? Part 1
Achieving a top ranking position in Google is every webmasters dream. Unfortunately very few ever make it high enough for it to make a big difference on their traffic volume. If you are one of the few to make it onto the Top 10 list, you have probably found out that your listing doesn't always stay on top. So, besides all the other advice online, it is also extremely important to under stand your competition, and to properly use their key words to your advantage. This article will be part one of a two part series. Below we will look at GoogleRankings.com and how this useful tool will help you in your quest to achieve a top listing within Google. Just as an addendum, we use these tools on a daily basis to achieve top 10 listings for our web properties.
New Site and Sandbox: How to Get Rid of It
You have put lot of sweat in making your site. Now you want it to engender revenues and only source of traffic is search engines. You have completed your seo optimization well but there is no precursor of any traffic. Yes Google places new sites in "Sandbox" and this means that your site would not rank well for high traffic keywords for a certain period. This phenomenon is called as "Sandbox". What if your site is in "Sandbox" or on hold? Should you hang around or is there any way out. Lets look at few of them:
Writing SEO Copy ? 8 Steps to Success
We all know that the lion's share of web traffic comes through the search engines. We also know that keywords and links to your site are the two things that affect your ranking in the search engines. Your keywords tell the search engines what you do, and the inbound links tell them how important you are. This combination is what determines your relevance. And relevance is what the search engines are after.
Tips On Optomizing Your Website For Search Engines
I wish to give a few little tips, about optimizing. You may find it quite useful, depending on the type of website you have.
How To Select The Right Keywords
Keyword Selection
Increase Your Link Popularity for Free
Among the many things you need to worry about for high search engine rankings,link popularity is among the most important. Link popularity refers the how many other websites on the internet link back to your website. The more websites link back to yours, the more popular your website will be with search engines. Let's explore a great free method of increasing your link popularity.
Maximize Your Search Engine Traffic - 13 Ways to Pull in More Visitors From the Search Engines
Maximizing traffic from the search engines to your web site is not a difficult task but it does require you to think ahead and plan your Search engine optimization strategy carefully. If you have not yet built your web site and are still in the initial planning stages then you may have an easier time of it. If you already have an existing web site, then you may need to take the time to read up on these SEO strategies and make some changes to incorporate them into your web site.
20 Ideas for Creating Traffic Rich, Search Engine Friendly Pages
Sometimes questions will arise around the subject of gateway information pages or doorway pages. People have heard that "doorway pages" are BAD and some have stated that search engines "hate doorway pages".
Keyword Selection- The Dark Horse of Search Engines Optimization
Below are what I call the "10 Commandments" for Keywords.
Surviving Googles Aging Delay
Google has always been the search industry's innovator and that's just what Google's aging delay symbolizes, the evolution of search innovation? yet another significant step forward for Google.
Do the Robot!
Everyone should realize that the search engines (sponsored ads aside)are not tools for advertisement, they are meant to be tools for everday web users. Users who search the web are looking for information, thats it. They may want information on how to buy something, or they may simply want to what the weather will be later that day, but the fact is they want information, and search engines are out there to help them find the information!