A sitemap is like a giant crossroads for the Robot. Or, it's like a city that has direct roads to any other city in the country. It's a spot from which the Robot can get to any place easily.
In its simplest terms, a sitemap is a list of the pages on your website. Generally, there are two types of sitemaps.
An HTML sitemap is made both for human users and for Search Engines and helps them easily find the information they need.
An XML Sitemap (it's normally called a Sitemap, with a capital S) is for Search Engines only. Create and submit a Sitemap, and thus you'll make sure that Search Engines know about all the pages on your site, including URLs that can't be naturally discovered by Search Engines' crawlers.
A good example of an HTML sitemap is here:
In fact, there're hundreds of tools of the kind. You can use this one, for example:
http://www.xml-sitemaps.com/
As soon as you've made your Sitemap, you have to submit it to Search Engines. The procedure of submission varies for different Search Engines. I'll now only help you with three biggest ones. Here you can find guidelines for Google.com (they have a webmaster tools section that helps you out):
http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=40318
Here's a link to Yahoo.com submission form:
(at the bottom of this page, you see a form to submit a URL of your sitemap file).
Right now, MSN.com doesn't have a similar submission form. So to submit your sitemap, simply add the following line to your robots.txt file (you'll read about robots.txt just a bit later):
Sitemap: http://www.yoursite.com/sitemap.xml
Provide the complete URL for your Sitemap on this line, and MSN's crawler will pick it up.
If you need to submit to other search engines, look them up for instructions. Go to the Search Engine you need and type in submit sitemap and name_of_the_search_engine. You'll find a submission form, or just some instructions, like in MSN.com. Follow the guidelines you get, and — here we go: you not only invited Search Engines' Robots to visit your site, but ensured comfortable and easy travel!
Note! Sitemap has links to all pages that you've got on your site. So when you make a new page, don't forget to add it to your sitemap, too. You won't need to submit it to Search Engines again, just update the sitemap itself.
In its simplest terms, a sitemap is a list of the pages on your website. Generally, there are two types of sitemaps.
An HTML sitemap is made both for human users and for Search Engines and helps them easily find the information they need.
An XML Sitemap (it's normally called a Sitemap, with a capital S) is for Search Engines only. Create and submit a Sitemap, and thus you'll make sure that Search Engines know about all the pages on your site, including URLs that can't be naturally discovered by Search Engines' crawlers.
A good example of an HTML sitemap is here:
Example of an HTML Sitemap
Now what do you need, so that the Robot can visit all your pages, fast? Right, an accurate overall sitemap. Here you can download a tool to make Sitemaps:
http://goog-sitemapgen.sourceforge.net/In fact, there're hundreds of tools of the kind. You can use this one, for example:
http://www.xml-sitemaps.com/
As soon as you've made your Sitemap, you have to submit it to Search Engines. The procedure of submission varies for different Search Engines. I'll now only help you with three biggest ones. Here you can find guidelines for Google.com (they have a webmaster tools section that helps you out):
http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=40318
Here's a link to Yahoo.com submission form:
(at the bottom of this page, you see a form to submit a URL of your sitemap file).
Right now, MSN.com doesn't have a similar submission form. So to submit your sitemap, simply add the following line to your robots.txt file (you'll read about robots.txt just a bit later):
Sitemap: http://www.yoursite.com/sitemap.xml
Provide the complete URL for your Sitemap on this line, and MSN's crawler will pick it up.
If you need to submit to other search engines, look them up for instructions. Go to the Search Engine you need and type in submit sitemap and name_of_the_search_engine. You'll find a submission form, or just some instructions, like in MSN.com. Follow the guidelines you get, and — here we go: you not only invited Search Engines' Robots to visit your site, but ensured comfortable and easy travel!
Note! Sitemap has links to all pages that you've got on your site. So when you make a new page, don't forget to add it to your sitemap, too. You won't need to submit it to Search Engines again, just update the sitemap itself.
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