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Over the last few days I have been helping my clients submit their sitemaps to Google, Yahoo and MSN to inform search engines to crawl through their websites. What I have noticed is that sitemap submission is a much faster way for websites to be found in search engines rather than using the search engine submission tool provided. After speaking to a few people and my clients I have noticed that people are not aware of this process because it is not shared. I personally think that it does help and is a must do for any Internet business as part of their search engine optimisation strategy.
What Is A Sitemap?
I want to share with you the two types of Sitemaps. For the more technical terminology and detailed definition please read Google’s About Sitemap.
A site map (or sitemap) is a list of pages of a web site accessible to crawlers or users. It can be either a document in any form used as a planning tool for web design, or a web page that lists the pages on a web site, typically organized in hierarchical fashion. This helps visitors and search engine bots find pages on the site.
Additionally having a sitemap for your website will help any visitor browse through all sections at just one page, rather than clicking through to different parts of the website. You can see my sitemap and get an idea of what it looks like.
There is a term that web developers refer to when creating sitemaps and it is called XML Sitemaps. Google introduced this term and it helps web developers publish lists of links from across their sites. Basically it is a simple version for search engines to use when they are crawling through any website. Currently Google, MSN, Yahoo and Ask now jointly support this. You can view my Sitemap XML to see how it looks like. Since MSN, Yahoo, Ask, and Google use the XML Sitemap, it is wise to have one on your website in your parent directory. Though, the search engines do not guarantee all links will be crawled, and being crawled does not guarantee being indexed, it is still the best insurance for getting a search engine to find your website. Also, XML sitemaps have replaced the older method of “submitting to search engines” by filling out a form on the search engine’s submission page. Most web developers submit a sitemap directly, or wait for search engines to find it.
Easy Navigation
A sitemap literally acts as a map of your site. If your visitors browses your site and gets lost between the thousands of pages on your site, they can always refer to your sitemap to see where they are, and navigate through your pages with the utmost ease.
Having a Consistent Site Theme
When your visitors load up your sitemap, they will get the gist of your site within a very short amount of time. There is no need to get the “big picture” of your site by reading through each page, and by doing that you will be saving your visitors’ time.
Search Engine Optimisation
When you create a sitemap, you are actually creating a single page which contains links to every single page on your site. Imagine what happens when search engine robots hit this page — they will follow the links on the sitemap and naturally every single page of your site gets indexed by search engines! It is also for this purpose that a link to the sitemap has to be placed prominently on the front page of your website.
Organisation and Relevance
A sitemap enables you to have a complete bird’s eye view of your site structure, and whenever you need to add new content or new sections, you will be able to take the existing hierarchy into consideration just by glancing at the sitemap. As a result, you will have a perfectly organised site with everything sorted according to their relevance.
This is why it is most important to implement a sitemap for website projects with a considerable size. Through this way, you will be able to keep your website easily accessible and neatly organised for everyone who uses your website.
For further information about sitemaps, visit sitemap.org
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