Create Sitemaps
Create sitemaps as at some point in search engine optimisation it’s simply time for that. Sitemap is a way to tell search engines about changes on the web site or about the pages that might not otherwise discovered.
Sitemap formats
Sitemap file must be UTF–8 encoded. You can name the sitemap file anything you wish. Any URLs must use entity escape codes for & ’ " < >
- sitemap.xml
- sitemap.xml.gz
- sitemap.txt
- sitemap.txt.gz
Sitemaps explained sitemaps.org
XML sitemap example
<lastmod></lastmod> is optional tag in sitemaps.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9">
<url>
<loc>http://www.example.com/</loc>
<lastmod>2011-06-08</lastmod>
</url>
</urlset>
Sitemap index example
A single sitemap is limited to max 50,000 URLs or 10 MB in size. Larger number of URLs can be divided into multiple sitemaps and then grouped by using a sitemaps index file.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<sitemapindex xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9">
<sitemap>
<loc>http://www.example.com/sitemap1.xml.gz</loc>
<lastmod>2011-06-02</lastmod>
</sitemap>
<sitemap>
<loc>http://www.example.com/sitemap2.xml.gz</loc>
<lastmod>2011-06-08</lastmod>
</sitemap>
</sitemapindex>
Creating mobile sitemaps
Creating sitemaps for mobile content is simple, just add
<url>
<loc>http://www.example.com/mobile-article.html</loc>
<mobile:mobile/>
</url>
Sitemap txt format example
Site map can be a simple text file that contains one full (including the http) URL per line.
http://www.example.com/ http://www.example.com/about.html http://www.example.com/catalog?item=11
Sitemap generator
Creating sitemaps for website is made simple with diverse online sitemap generators and sitemap generators for download.
- List of web sitemap generators code.google.com/p/sitemap-generators/wiki/SitemapGenerators
- Java based online sitemap generator unlimited, converts at least 4000 URLs auditmypc.com/free-sitemap-generator.asp
- Sitemap generator tool, max 500 entries sitemapdoc.com
- Xenu.
Sitemap builders are different. After trying out various sitemap generators, Xenu's Link Sleuth (http://home.snafu.de/tilman/xenulink.html) seems to be the best tool for creating sitemaps manually.
Creating sitemaps with Xenu.
First check the website (on local machine or live) for broken links and other navigational issues with Xenu. Xenu's Link Sleuth is an amazingly fast, very accurate and simple tool to find broken links on web sites. Link Sleuth runs on Microsoft Windows and is proprietary software available at no charge and is written by Tilman Hausherr (http://www.xenu.de/).
When convinced that everything is as supposed, create the sitemap. There is an option “Create Google sitemap file…” in the File menu on Xenu. However, this option appears only after checking the site.
Open the created sitemap in a text editor and strip off all lastmod, changefreq and priority tags. Only one instance of lastmod will remain, that’s under the main domain address. This will save about 100 KB at a 600 KB sitemap.
Some spiders might prefer to deal with smaller sitemap files, 30 KB versus 500 KB. Compress sitemap.xml to sitemap.xml.gz with 7z from www.7-zip.org
Sitemap location.
Sitemap has to be located above all files and directories it lists. Sitemap has to be located on the highest-level directory search engines should to crawl. Make sure that no URLs that reside in a higher-level directory are listed in the sitemap.
A Sitemap file with location http://www.example.com/search-engine-optimisation/sitemap.xml can include any URLs starting with http://www.example.com/search-engine-optimisation/ but can not include URLs starting with http://www.example.com/web-development/
Usual sitemap location is the root folder of website.
Sitemap validator
Google sitemap validator validome.org/google/
Submit sitemap. Sitemap in robots.txt file
One way is to submit the sitemap under the webmaster sections of major search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo.
Easier way is to submit the created sitemap through a robots.txt file. Place a notification about the sitemaps and their locations in the robots.txt file.
Sitemap: http://www.example.com/sitemap.xml.gz Sitemap: http://www.example.com/sitemap.xml Sitemap: http://www.example.com/sitemap-2.xml Sitemap: http://www.example.com/search-engine-optimisation/sitemap.xml
Search engine crawlers check for web site robots.txt files on daily basis and pick the sitemaps up quickly.
Informing search engine crawlers
Make sure that search engines pick the sitemaps up quick enough. Ping search engines to submit sitemaps. Enter into the browser address bar -
http://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/ping?sitemap=http://www.example.com/sitemap.xml http://www.bing.com/webmaster/ping.aspx?siteMap=http://www.example.com/sitemap.xml
Yahoo has shut down it's similar Site Explorer service in the beginning of 2012 and began outsource Yahoo! Search back-end functionality from Microsoft Bing. So, ping Bing!
Since June 2012 submissions.ask.com does not work any more.
2011 2012
To create sitemaps for a website is a very essential step in search engine optimisation.