You Need More Than One Site Map - Google and XML
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What is XML? XML is an acronym for Extensible Markup Language. It is an open standard for exchanging structured documents and data over the Internet, introduced by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) back in November 1996.
Google launched the Site Map 0.84 Protocol back in 2005, which uses the XML format. It was developed in response to the increasing size and complexity of web sites, and the frequent changing, adding, and updating of content at many of these sites. As web sites grew, it was difficult for the search engines to keep up with all of the material, and sometimes their spiders skipped information as they crawled these rapidly changing sites.
The new XML protocol could track URLs more efficiently, optimizing sites to one page and summarizing how frequently a page updated. After Google's publishing under the Attribution/Share Alike Creative Commons License, the word quickly spread.
How to Create these Site Maps
All of you non-experienced programmers are probably wondering how to go about creating these different site maps for your web sites. Fortunately, you do not need to know! In fact there are multiple free and paid site map generators across the Internet that can automatically create them for you.
Some only specialize in one of the above formats, such as the ROR Site Map Generator provided by ROR Web (www.rorweb.com) or the XML Site Map Generator Script from Google itself. This script can be found by going to this link: https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools, and following the instructions within.
The site map generator that I currently use for my clients and personal sites is the four-in-one version offered by XML-Site Maps.com. The welcome screen gives a clear understanding of what you are getting, what to do to get it and what to do after you receive it. You simply enter a starting URL (usually the root domain) and the program will automatically pull up a details page, including number of pages, broken links, and the different site map formats.
A Site Map Conclusion
While your web site's site map is much more than a summary of your site, it may be seen as one. It is an all-in-one solution to direct even your most oblivious visitors to the necessary areas within your site and give them an alternative if you have broken links.
Your site map will also serve the search engines' purposes in many ways, giving them a clear path to all the pages you expect to be indexed regardless of the broken links stated above and dynamic URLs which are hard for them to read and understand. It will also increase the odds that they will rank you for your keyword phrases, and quickly get your information to them, including when you expect to update. If these site map formats were not originally in your web site building plans, consider adding them today!
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