I'm not talking about the kind of site map you publish as an HTML file on your server so your visitors can see what topics your pages cover, and maybe get some navigational help. Navigational help, by the way is something they shouldn't need. if your site navigation is not completely straightforward and intuitive, then don't try and fix it by putting in a site map - get back to the drawing-board and reorganize it totally!
Sitemap.XML
The Sitemap I am talking about is an XML file you make available to Google to assist the Google engine in indexing your site - and it should help it get indexed that much quicker. This exercise is worthwhile doing, so set aside a little time to get the job done - I'm going to show you how to do it, now that you've verified your site.
I've looked at a number of online free sitemap generators like those at XML-Sitemaps.com and Auditmypc.com - however the one I finally ended up using for my own sites is phpSitemapNG which operates from your own server. It's available free from Enarion.net. If you're able, you can give a donation - it's certainly a valuable service.
The thing I like about phpSitemapNG is that it does a far more thorough job than the others. You have to do a litlle tweak to the resulting Sitemap to get Google to read it, but I figured out how to do that and I'll show you. The result of using this generator is a very comprehensive mapping of your site, and it also gives you an indication of the strength of linking between your site's pages.
Preparing phpSitemapNG
Go to http://enarion.net/google/ and click on the Download link on the left. You'll find the Enarion site has comprehensive instructions for downloading the script and putting it on your server. Save the contents of the zip file to your hard-drive and follow the instructions on the Enarion site for uploading files and folders to your server. CHMOD the files as directed. I've told you how to do that a couple of posts below.
Once you've done that, go to http://www.yourdomain.com/phpSitemapNG/ where you will find the Control Panel of your Sitemap Generator and execute the script. It will show you a graphical listing of all the files it finds, and you can direct it to overwrite the sitemap.xml file you've already placed in the root drive of your domain.
You now have on your own server a script that will create an up-to-date sitemap.xml file whenever you need it.
More tomorrow!
Patricia Howitt
1stClassWeb.Biz
Technorati Tags:
market, marketing, business, indexing, advertising, google, lead capture, landing page, sitemap
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