An XML sitemap is generated solely for the benefit of searchbots to boost the Google ranking of all the inner pages. This concept is similar to HTML sitemaps, which are created for the benefit of visitors. To Submit or Not To Submit? A lot has been speculated over this particular topic and industry experts have changed their opinions quite often depending upon the crawl statistics. After conducting tests on various websites and scrutinizing their crawl rate, it has been agreed: The time taken to crawl a website when submitting its sitemap to search engines is less than half the time taken when searchbots are left to their own devices to discover the website. 6 Steps for Efficient Sitemap Submission to Boost Google Ranking: a) Accessibility: Ensure that the sitemap is linked to and from each page of the website as this accelerates indexing. Most of the websites utilize the ample space available in the footer for including the link to the sitemap. b) Robots.txt File: Give search engines direct access to the xml sitemap by mentioning it in the robots.txt file. c) Webmasters Tool: Use webmasters tool to submit the xml sitemap to Googlebot. The webmasters tool provides data on crawl errors and functions as the way to adjust the Googlebot crawl rate. d) Add Priority Tag: Sitemaps give you a basic, yet fantastic option of listing the priority of each link of your website. This helps the search engines to understand which web pages are more important: e) Add Change Frequency Tag: This tag informs the search engines about the frequency with which the web page is likely to change. Searchbots, especially Googlebot respects the policies laid down by webmasters and tries to visit the website as mentioned in the change frequency tag. Over a period of time, if the webpage is not updated as mentioned in the tag, Googlebot reduces its visit frequency. f) Do Not Deviate from the Main Goal: Refrain from linking to external pages from the sitemap as its sole purpose is indexing of your own website. A website with more than 500 web pages need not be restricted to one sitemap. A folder containing more than one sitemap can be created and suitable changes in the robots.txt file are sufficient to guide the searchbots in the direction of sitemaps. There are hoards of xml sitemap generator tools in the market which generate efficient sitemaps for all types of websites. Coupled with options like priority, change frequency and last modification tags, webmasters can create picture perfect and search engine friendly sitemaps for their websites.
Article Source: http://www.articlecontentprovider.com/articlesubmit
Sitemaps should be generated with the sole purpose of presenting to search engines, the entire layout of the website with respect to the link it contains. An XML sitemap is the need of the day as it helps search engines discover all the internal links of the website which would otherwise take months to discover and index.
Debbie A. Everson is the CEO of SearchMar Inc., experienced SEO Consultants and Search Engine Optimization Agency to over 2,000 small businesses. Ask about our search engine optimization, paid search advertising, social media, or email marketing services and request a free consultation. Read my SEO Blog for hints and tips and follow me on Twitter @searchmar. Call 1.866.885.6263 to speak to an SEO Consultant.
Please Rate this Article
5 out of 5 4 out of 5 3 out of 5 2 out of 5 1 out of 5
