XML sitemaps are an easy way for webmasters to find search engines from sites on their site that robots can crawl.
A typical XML sitemap file lists each URL, as well as the last update, how often it is changed and how important it is for other pages on the page. This will help search engines to better crawl your site.
In November 2006, Google, Yahoo! And MSN has joined a new industry standard for Sitemaps: Sitemaps 0.90. As long as webmasters follow the protocol, they ensure that their sites are fully and consistently indexing all the important search engines (real progress). This article is important for anyone missing or poorly ranked.
The official site of the joint venture is located at sitemaps.org and contains a lot of information about the new standard and syntax. What the site does not do in particular explains exactly how to submit the sitemap to the top three! The recommended format for this site is:
It is not currently working on any of the three sites! While this does not work, this short article gives you guidance on how to create your sitemap and (b) how to submit it to all three major search engines …
Creating a Sitemap
Some webhosting providers (for example, 1 and 1) provide the utilities to create a sitemap through a Web Control Panel, so always check the Provider. If this service is unavailable, visit xml-sitemaps.com and enter the site URL in the generator field. Copy and paste the displayed Sitemap into your Notebook, then save and upload it to your site with the following filename: sitemap.xml
To confirm the XML before uploading to the search engine (useful if any manual changes have been made) , See the XML validator (on the same site) where you can add your Sitemap URL and check the standard.
Send this sitemap to MSN
MSN has not yet made an official sitemap for submission (July 2007). To monitor the situation please visit (from time to time) the MSN Official Livesearch Blog (where future announcements are likely to occur).
While MSN has not yet installed the door, there is a recognized back door for sending the sitemap to the MSN search index; Notably moreover.com! You must enter the following syntax directly into your browser's URL account:
From February 2005, moreover.com is an official service provider for RSS feeds MyMSN portal (see A press release) and reliable evidence suggest that submitting MSN will further web pages within 2-3 weeks.
Keep in mind that although MSN still does not support direct submission, it is recommended on their blog to refer to the robots.txt file on your sitemap (now supported by sitemaps.org). For example:
A Sitemap file, but not for cgi-bin directory crawl. To learn more about how to implement robots.txt (root of your site's web server), visit the following page: http://www.robotstxt.org
Google originally developed the XML schema for Sitemaps and developed a webmaster portal where you can submit your sitemap:
First, you need to give Google all the sites you own, and then make sure you own it. Audits are achieved by adding a meta tag to the header tags on the site's title page. The tag syntax is:
How to do this on Google's site. Yahoo
Yahoo follows a similar approach from Google. Once again, there is a dedicated webmaster service (Yahoo! Site Explorer) and a procedure to verify site ownership. First, go to:
Add a site and click the check button. You can then download the verification key html file – which you need to upload to the web server root directory. You can then return to Site Explorer and tell Yahoo to start authentication. This can take up to 24 hours. However, you can add a sitemap by clicking on the control button and then add the sitemap as a feed.
Questions for the Site Ask
Follows the following three simpler approaches. To submit a Sitemap, simply enter the ping URL and then the full URL of the site location:
After returning to return, you will receive a reassuring message from Ask to receive the submission. Very neat!
Source by David Viney