DummySpots.com

If you have your own domain, you should have a current XML Sitemap in your home directory. Now that virtually all the major search engines have adopted Google’s sitemap standards, having one should be considered mandatory. It maximizes the opportunity for search engines to thoroughly index your entire site. The discussion about whether to do it is pretty much settled. It’s like (some philosopher, I can’t remember who) said about his belief in God: “If I do, and I don’t need to, no harm done… but if I don’t, and it turns out I should have… whoa, baby!” (that, of course, is a paraphrase).

What is a sitemap? They more accurately should be called a site index, which is self-explanatory, but the term sitemap has hogged all the attention, and so that’s what they’re still called. A sitemap is simply a properly-formed XML page referencing the URL of every page on your site so that search crawlers have an easier time… crawling.

Now sitemaps technically aren’t necessary for the accurate crawling of your site, but you might be surprised at how some of your pages’ ranks change when the spiders have had a look at your pretty little sitemap for a few weeks. Your pages are easier to find, they rank better, they get more hits and links, so they rank better, so they’re easier to find… kind of an inverted death spiral. A life spiral.

The thing that held me off from uploading a sitemap was, basically, that I’m too dumb to make one. Google gives these instructions in their Webmaster Tools (you do use Google’s Webmaster Tools, don’t you?). See if they make sense to you. People with Computer Science degrees are excused. I’d read a bit, then say “forget it!”.

Then last summer I happened across one of the best little tools I’ve happened to happen across. It’s called the XML-Sitemaps.com Free Online Sitemap Generator, and it’s exactly what the title says. Go there, enter your base URL, have a cup of coffee while it churns away… then voila! download your ready- to- use sitemap! Be sure that the uncompressed sitemap.xml file finds its way to your home directory; you can read the uses for the other files at the site (some folks used to keep html sitemaps in their home directory for other people to look at… that’s purely optional, as after the first few hundred pages, they look like crap.. here’s mine, for instance).

Now just go to Google Webmaster Tools and submit your new sitemap!

It’s just that easy, and I know for me it made a very noticeable difference in my traffic and my rankings. That may have something to do with the quirky way I code lots of my stuff (if you use your turn-key blog software right out of the box, it may not make as big a difference), but even if the crawlers already have an easy time with your site, this will only make it that much easier.

And finally, remember that Google (wink) can’t promise (wink) that having a sitemap (wink) will improve your rankings (wink, wink), but they do “strongly encourage” the practice.

Best of luck. (wink)