Webmasters sign up for the program at the home page for Google Sitemaps (https://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/login). The introduction explains that users need to create a Sitemap in the correct format using the Sitemap Generator (https://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/docs/en/sitemap-generator.html). The generator helps you to create an XML Sitemap. You then place this file on your Web server, and update your Sitemap whenever you make changes to your site. Obviously, you have to tell Google where this Sitemap is, so the spider will know where to go. In addition to the URLs you want crawled, you can include information about the URLs, such as when the page last changed, how often the page changes, and the relative priority of the pages. It is possible to set it up so that Google is automatically informed when your Sitemap changes, so the spider can come by and index the newest version.
One interesting point about the Sitemap Generator is that it is an open source client in Python. And the project itself is being released under an Attribution/Share Alike Creative Commons license, with the idea that other search engines will pick it up to improve their own indexing of the Internet. For those who don’t know, Creative Commons is a not-for-profit developing flexible alternatives to the most restrictive forms of copyright –- rather like open source licenses themselves. An Attribution/Share Alike license allows users “to copy, distribute, display, and perform the work…to make derivative works…to make commercial use of the work...Under the following conditions: You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor…If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under a license identical to this one.”
Several other points are worth noting. First, the Sitemap Generator is intended to work regardless of the size of your website. So whether you have a simple blog site or millions of pages that are changing all the time, Google Sitemaps should be able to help you. Second, using Google Sitemaps will not increase your PageRank. Third, there is absolutely no guarantee, even with this program, that Google will crawl or index all of your URLs; remember, this is still a beta. Finally, as with some (though not all) Google betas, this one has a discussion/support page on Google Groups (http://groups-beta.google.com/group/google-sitemaps?hl=en), with 600 members as of this writing.
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