Sebuah tool yang akan memvalidasi opsional xml sitemap dan ping ke Google untuk memberitahukan lokasinya.

Sitemap xml validator kami akan memberitahu anda langsung jika ada masalah dengan peta situs Anda yang memungkinkan Anda untuk membuat perubahan sebelum mengirimkan ke Google.

Anda dapat juga secara opsional ping Search Engine dengan keberadaan sitemap anda. Didukung mesin pencari adalah:

* Google
* Yahoo
* Ask.com
* Moreover.com

Harap dicatat bahwa sitemap.com sendiri akan merekomendasikan Anda menginformasikan Google peta situs Anda melalui Google Webmaster Tools.

Klik di sini untuk validate sitemap xml

Silakan masukkan alamat http lengkap untuk sitemap anda, misalnya:http://www.domain.com/sitemap.xml

Sitemap

Setelah membuat blog dan mendaftarkannya di search engine, agar blog kita bisa lebih populer adalah dengan membuat dan mendaftarkan Sitemap. Setelah kita tahu apa itu Sitemap, maka kita perlu segera mendaftarkan sitemap kita ke search engine, dalam hal ini Google dan Yahoo.
Kenapa google dan yahoo, silahkan baca artikel ini.

Cara daftar Sitemap berikut telah di modifikasi agar menjadi lebih optimal. Trik ini saya dapat sewaktu mengunjungi blognya Gadanama (salut!).

• Daftar pada Google

Langkah pertama adalah masuk ke account google anda, lalu ke webmaster tool atau klik disini dan login dengan account google. Maka kita akan dibawa ke halaman dashboard webmastertool, seperti gambar di bawah ini

Klik add (di lingkari merah) dan kita akan dibawa menuju halaman ini

Isi box yang ditunjukkan dengan tanda panah dengan sitemap kita :

1. atom.xml?redirect=false
2. atom.xml?redirect=false&start-index=1&max-results=100
3. atom.xml?redirect=false&start-index=100&max-results=200

Setiap kali mencantumkan satu sitemap klik submit sitemap.
Kenapa sampai 3 sitemap dan sebenarnya sama (dari atom), karena google secara default (sitemap no. 1) hanya akan mengindeks 25 post terakhir kita, jadi apabila kita punya post sampai 100 ada kemungkinan 75 post terakhir kita sudah tidak terindeks lagi. Maka perlu ditambahkan seperti pada no. 2 dan 3 agar terindeks sampai 200 post. Jika ingin lebih tinggal tambahkan sitemap baru dengan mengganti angka 100 dan 200.

• Daftar pada Yahoo

Silahkan ke Yahoo Site Explorer atau klik disini. Sign in dengan account yahoo kita. Kemudian klik Submit Site Feed.
Kita akan diminta untuk mengisi site feed kita. Nah silahkan gunakan sitemap seperti pada no.1 di atas dengan menambahkan alamat blog kita didepannya, seperti ini : http://namabloganda.blogspot.com/atom.xml?redirect=false

Selanjutnya silahkan tambahkan sitemap yang lain (seperti no. 2 dan 3).

Without following every single link on your site, how can you be sure that your
pages are simply not found by the search engines? It’s a good idea to include a
link to your sitemap on each new high performance page you create.

Without following every single link on your site, how can you be sure that your
pages are simply not found by the search engines? It’s a good idea to include a
link to your sitemap on each new high performance page you create.

Without following every single link on your site, how can you be sure that your
pages are simply not found by the search engines? It’s a good idea to include a
link to your sitemap on each new high performance page you create.

Google XML Sitemaps สำหรับ WordPress

ก่อนอื่นๆ ต้องมารู้กันก่อนว่า Sitemap มีความสำคัญกับ SEO อย่างไรบ้าง ไซต์แมพนั้นก็คือแผนที่เว็บไซต์ครับ ซึ่งก็คล้ายๆ กับสารบัญของหนังสือนั่นเอง ซึ่งมีไว้เพื่อรวบรวมลิ๊งค์ทุกๆ หน้าของเว็บไซต์เรารวมไว้ในหน้าเดียวกัน เพื่อที่ให้ Bot สามารถมาเยี่ยมชมหน้านี้เพียงหน้าเดียว ก็จะสามารถไต่ไปในหน้าอื่นๆได้ โดยที่ไม่ต้องเสียเวลาเกินกว่าที่จําเป็น สำหรับ Google XML Sitemaps ตัวนี้เป็นปลั๊กอินของ WP ซึ่งสคริปต์ของแต่ละค่ายจะทำงานไม่เหมือนกัน และจะแนะนำ Sitemap อีกตัวที่เด่นคือ Sitemap ของ PHPWind จุดเด่นคือสามารถซุ่ม Priority โดยอัตโนมัติดังนั้นเมื่อส่งเข้า Google แล้วจะไม่มีข้อผิดพลาดเลย (จะมีก็น้อย) ซึ่งถ้า Sitemap ที่มีค่า Priority เดียวกันทุกลิงก์จะเป็นปัญหากับ Google มากครับ เพราะเท่าที่ลองดูแล้วค่า Priority ที่เหมือนกันจะเกิดข้อผิดพลาดทุกลิงก์เลย Google XML Sitemaps ตัวนี้ถือว่าเป็นสุดยอด Sitemap เลยก็ว่าได้เพราะถ้าใช่ตัวนี้แล้วคุณสามารถที่จะส่งไฟล์ sitemap.xml ที่ระบบสร้างออกแล้ว นำไป Submit ไว้ที่ Search Engine หลายๆ ค่ายได้ เช่น Google, Bing, Yahoo, ASK เป็นต้น (คุ้มมากมาย) ไฟล์ที่ส่งออกมานั่นแบ่งได้เป็น 2 สกุลคือ ไฟล์ .xml (ที่นิยม) และไฟล์ .gz ซึ่งเป็นไฟล์บีบอัด

When I was in my elementary stages of using “Homestead SiteBuilder” It was a nightmare trying to figure out how to create a site map that Google would accept. I had to dye my hair after that project, I am certain that more than 10 Grey hairs appeared every few minutes. Fortunately after many days of research, contact help support and many other things I was FINALLY able to figure it out. (note: Homestead support was absolutely 0% help with this topic. I usually don’t have complaints about their support, however, when it came to SiteMaps, I received a whole bunch of “I don’t knows” and “pay this much and we can do it for you”. I was quite disappointed).

I have noticed a few websites that offer to show how to create a SiteMap for homestead site builder and properly submit it to Google FOR A PRICE… (bummer). Well, fortunately for you, the HOMESTEAD SEO PRO BLOG cares about the struggles and hard times that HS SiteBuilder users endure. Below I will explain the entire process FOR FREE, all I ask in return is that you continue to visit the Homestead SEO Pro Blog for future helpful articles.

HOW TO CREATE A SITEMAP IN HOMESTEAD SITEBUILDER AND UPLOAD IT TO GOOGLE.

1. First things first, we need to focus on CREATING the SiteMap. What you will need to do is open up “Notepad” (windows) and then -copy/paste the following text inside “Notepad”. (NOTE: Remember to change the www.YOURWEBSITE.com to your actual website).

<?xml version=”1.0″ encoding=”UTF-8″?>
<urlset
xmlns=”http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9″
xmlns:xsi=”http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance”
xsi:schemaLocation=”
http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9
http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/09/sitemap.xsd”>

<url>
<loc>http://www.YOURWEBSITE.com.html</loc>
<priority>0.5</priority>
<changefreq>monthly</changefreq>
</url>

You will now need to copy and paste the following text (on the next line of the sitemap) for EACH URL on your website that you want google to crawl.

<url>
<loc>http://www.YOURWEBSITE.com.html</loc>
<priority>0.5</priority>
<changefreq>monthly</changefreq>
</url>

Copy the above text as many times as needed for each URL you want google to search… Here is an example of what it should look like:

<?xml version=”1.0″ encoding=”UTF-8″?>
<urlset
xmlns=”http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9″
xmlns:xsi=”http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance”
xsi:schemaLocation=”
http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9
http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/09/sitemap.xsd”>

<url>
<loc>http://www.YOURWEBSITE.com.html</loc>
<priority>0.5</priority>
<changefreq>monthly</changefreq> </url>

<url>
<loc>http://www.YOURWEBSITE.com/contactus.html</loc>
<priority>0.5</priority>
<changefreq>monthly</changefreq>
</url>

<url>
<loc>http://www.YOURWEBSITE.com/aboutus.html</loc>
<priority>0.5</priority>
<changefreq>monthly</changefreq>
</url>

<url>
<loc>http://www.YOURWEBSITE.com/products.html</loc>
<priority>0.5</priority>
<changefreq>monthly</changefreq>
</url>

After your are finished entering all of your URLs that you want searched, click FILE>SAVE AS and title is “sitemap.xml”, then click save. Your sitemap is now created.

2. We now need to get our sitemap uploaded to our Homestead Sitebuilder files. To do this, open up Homestead Sitebuilder and click on the “FILE MANAGER” tab on the left. You will see a button at the top that says “IMPORT”. Click on “Import” and browse for the sitemap that you just saved. Once you find the sitemap in your computer files, select it and click open. Your sitemap will now be added to your Homestead Sitebuilder files.

You will now need to click on the “UPLOAD” tab that is at the top (near the “Import” button). When the mini window opens up asking if you want to upload the entire site, click on upload.

Your sitemap is now uploaded to the internet.

3. You now need to log into your google webmasters account. Visit http://www.google.com/webmasters and click on the “Sign in to webmaster tools” icon. If you have not yet added your website to google webmasters, you will need to do so. Click on the “Add Site” button and follow the instructions.

Once you add a site, you will need to verify that you are the owner of this site. Google will provide a verification HTML code that you will need to add to your website. To do so, go to your “Index” page in the Homestead Sitebuilder and on the right you will see 3 tabs (near the top) that say: Basic, Meta Tags and Advanced. Click on the advanced tab. In the advanced tab, you will see a large box (under the <HEAD> tag section) where you will be able to place HTML codes. You MUST place the Verification HTML code that google provides (in the google webmaster tools) inside this text box. NOTE: adding this code DOES NOT show up on your website. Once you add the HTML code that is provided by Google, you need to save and upload the index page.

Once you add the HTML code and save/upload the index page, go back to the google webmasters page and click on the “Verify” button. Google will search your source code for the verification HTML code and then confirm that your site is verified. If done correctly, Your site is now verified.

4. Now we need to add your Sitemap to google webmaster. To do so, go inside the google webmasters website and make sure you are logged in. Click on the website that you just verified. Once it opens up the tools for your website, you will see an “Add Sitemap” button near the bottom left side of the page. Click on the “add sitemap” button and it will ask you to type in the sitemap URL. It should automatically have your website entered in followed by a /.

In the text box where you need to type the Sitemap URL, you MUST type in “Sitemap.xml” The finished text should look like www.yourwebsite.com/sitemap.xml.

Click the submit button and google will take a moment to verify that your sitemap was created and submitted correctly. (usually takes no longer than 30 minutes).

If done correctly and google accepts your sitemap, You are now finished creating and submitting your sitemap to Google using Homestead Sitebuilder.

Google will take this sitemap into consideration and eventually crawl all the URLs that are entered on this sitemap. As you develop your website and add new pages, you will need to repeat this process and add the new URLs into your site map, Import it to homestead sitebuilder again and upload it, you will then need to RE-SUBMIT it to google.

I hope this tutorial for “Creating a sitemap with Homestead Sitebuilder and uploading it to Google” was helpful. If you have more questions regarding this process, you can send your email to john@netbreakdesigns.com

John R | Designer | NETBREAK DESIGNS | www.netbreakdesigns.com | john@netbreakdesigns.com

SITEMAPS
What is a Sitemap?! Right off the top we are not talking about your web-site navigation, so what am I talking about?!
Well it’s like this, Google or any of the other search engines is like a huge directory of products or services, possibly just like your e-

commerce buss. or the like.
So basically, anyone looking for anything online is beating down googles or yahoos or bing for examples, door by searching on certain

words or combinations of words called keywords or keyword phrases. An example would be boots or hikeing boots. Or something to do

with ‘your’ particular product or service.
So how do you get these hot referalls and basically free traffic?! Well it’s called seo or search engine optimization. there are basically 3

things to think about #1)Does google know you exist? #2) Do they know what your service is ? and #3) Do they know where to send

your free or pd. traffic (traffic is the people who search on your keywords and are already interested in what you are provideing.
With this then in mind the sitemap is the third part of the equation and that is where the search engine sends the traffic.
Lets think of it this way, suppose that I invited you to my home; But instead of directions to my home I just basically say oh we have a

great bbq pit we are a stones throw from the lake and ya d’ ya d’ ya but I don’t give you a house # or street or any of that pertanant

info. Well that would be your web-site out there without a sitemap. So if search engines don’t have directions to your web-site then good

chances are that people won’t show up to visit cause’ search engines wont know where to send them.can you see how bad that would suck!

Bottom line get hooked up with xml sitemap or rss feed .I hope this tidbit has been helpful.

Bing is horrible about indexings, so I thought I might go ahead and post my sitemap via here, since WP gets indexed pretty fast.

Now that Bing and Yahoo are teaming up with search, having your web site optimized for Microsoft’s new search engine is even more important.  While browsing through some of Bing’s webmaster documentation, I found a way you an submit your sitemap to them – in one single easy step.

All you need to do is copy and paste this into your address bar, replacing the sitemap URL path with your own.

http://www.bing.com/webmaster/ping.aspx?sitemap=www.yourwebsite.com/sitemap.xml

If done successfully, you will get a message that says, “Thanks for submitting your sitemap”. 

For those of you who like to keep up with more data, you can also submit your site map to Bing by signing up or logging into the Bing Webmaster Tools section.  From there you can get access to more tools, like the keyword research tool, the HTTP verifier, and the robots.txt validator.

Sitemaps are a way to tell Google about pages on your site we might not otherwise discover. In its simplest terms, a XML Sitemap—usually called Sitemap, with a capital S—is a list of the pages on your website. Creating and submitting a Sitemap helps make sure that Google knows about all the pages on your site, including URLs that may not be discoverable by Google’s normal crawling process.What is a site map?
A site map is the listing of all the pages held within a web site.  It is created with the intent of easily informing search engines about pages that are on a web site and available for crawling or indexing.  The listing starts at the home or base page and then branches out accordingly.  This listing can be done in several different formats – XML, text file or a syndication feed (RSS).  One or all formats can be chosen but in order to be effective, the site map(s) created must be in a format that allows search engine spiders to properly index all the listed pages.  As XML is a standard by  most search engines, XML is the best formatting choice.

How to create one
The creation of a site map is quite easy.  If your web site is only a few pages, you can create an XML site map manually.  However, if your web site is rather extended, the best option would be to use one of many different programs available on the web.

There are many programs you can download and use on your computer to create your site map.  Alternatively you can use an online site map creator.  One such online option is available at XML-Sitemaps.  This site offers a straightforward four step operation – you type in your base url, select how often your site is changed, indicate the last modification date, select the priority number and click start.  Once your site maps is created, you simply download it to your main site folder.  This site creates XML site maps that work perfectly with Google and will enable you to use the Google webmaster tools to enhance your SEO efforts further.  One thing to keep in mind with XML-Sitemaps is the online version will only index up to 500 pages.  If your site is much larger than this, you would be better off downloading a piece of software that will index larger sites.

Creating an XML site map for your site is just one step in the SEO process.  It is simple to do either manually or with some online help.  A properly created XML site map will ensure your site is thoroughly indexed by search engines and will contribute to your SEO efforts.

“To make good websites we must be good information architects. We must learn what motivates people and how they consume content visually. Then bake those ideas into our designs.”-Stephen Anderson

Today I got to meet with two more professionals in the web developing field. The first was Josiah Roe, he is the president of Medium, a local company in Chattanooga. Josiah spoke with us in class about their process and how they create their websites for various customers. He showed us the sitemaps, which is basically a content strategy phase, also known as site taxonomy. Then he went on to show us the different layouts of the wireframing that they did and how each step was developed to be closer and closer to what the customer was looking for. Also, he said that a grid system is the only way to build a successful site, which I’m not entirely sure that I agree with that statement. Yes, sure using a grid system has it’s benefits, but it’s not necessary every single time to make something successful. There are plenty of websites out there that didn’t use a grid system and they are very successful sites. But anyways, he spoke about the different companies that they have had major contracts with so far to develop a working website such as: EPB Fiber-Optics, Picture RX, and Yanmar, and Olan Mills. I really enjoyed the way he and Bekka talked about how each process is a valuable part to coming up with a successful site. Bekka Reese is a part of the graphic design team at Medium. She was really helpful in explaining how she produces so many wireframes, and has only a limited amount of time to do them, so it’s seems that Medium is a quick turn around business, but it seems like the environment there is somewhat relaxing, which I’m sure it’s not, but I got that from them. Thanks to Josiah Roe and Bekka Reese from Medium for coming and speaking with us. For more information go to: thisismedium.com

Creo que no tengo madera de bloguera. Me gusta contar cosas pero no por rutina. Eso no importaría porque si mi blog tuviese contenidos interesantes sé que tendría al menos un par de fieles seguidores. También me gusta tener un espacio online más allá de facebook, un espacio que me resulta muy atractivo al ser nuevo para mí y ofrecer tantas opciones en las que hurgar y estar entretenida en los pequeños ratos libres. El problema llega cuando quieres saber un poco más. Aparecen miles de términos desconocidos o que sólo te suenan remotamente como SEO, indexado, sitemaps, dmoz, overture, adsense… que se resumen en una sóla frase: enlaza y que te enlacen.

Pero ¡cómo cuesta poner enlaces!. No me refiero a enlaces a otros blogs o fuentes que uso para documentarme (siempre cito la fuente y en los casos en los que es posible enlazo al autor del contenido), me refiero a enlaces a mis propios posts o a enlaces explicativos. Una chorrada que parece tener cierta relevancia a la hora de generar tráfico a un blog. A partir de ahora tendré más cuidado, y sobre todo más paciencia, a la hora de escribir, y revisaré viejos posts y trataré de actualizarlos con más enlaces.

Source: Ben Fino

A sitemap, or site index, is a hierarchical visual model of the pages of a Web site.Similar to a table of contents in a book, the site map makes it easier for a user to find information on a site without having to navigate through the site’s many pages. A sitemap can be XML, TXT or HTML usually XML and TXT is served for robots.
XML Sitemaps are one of the best ways to let search engines know about the pages on your site in detail. They allow you to specify the importance of each page, the frequency which they should download them and the last time you modified them.
Sitemaps are not only used by the visitors to easily navigate a website, search engines like Google and Yahoo also uses them! How? To make the work of search engine spiders or crawlers easy sitemaps are used as guide to know the pages to be crawled. Nowadays sitemaps are used in all websites to increase the visibility of the web pages to visitors as well as to search engines by listing all web pages.
HTML sitemap help the users to navigate easily and XML sitemap is essential for the visibility of a site by search engine crawler. Both are equally important and essential for a site. There are some advantages of XML sitemap and additional features too which HTML sitemap doesn’t have:

• To crawl all the web pages of a site frequently.
• Can set the priority for each page to crawl.
• To make the site crawl for all the search engines.
• Can allow the spider to track all the pages of the site.
• It helps the spider in fast indexing.
• The crawler tracks the updates or changes made in the site immediately.
• It allows search engine to rank accurately.

XML sitemap saves the time of search engine spider to track all the pages of a site. It does not affect the site ranking but it allows crawler to track all the pages frequently which is helpful to rank well. Previously, XML sitemap was important for Google only but now Yahoo! and MSN are also giving importance to it.

I was talking with another experience architect yesterday about how often we get feedback on our deliverables that contradicts either other items in the same feedback document or feedback we received earlier. Sometimes, feedback is so cryptic that we aren’t sure what’s even being requested. It’s frustrating because we want our clients to feel like we’re listening to and acting on their feedback.

Thinking back to previous projects, we found that some processes work better than others. Here are some tips for helping your client (or yourself) give good feedback on UX deliverables.

Use a Feedback Template

What seems to work the best is provide your client with a feedback template. We’ve done this in Excel with success, but don’t always remember to set up the process ahead of time. The idea is to have each page of the wireframes (or section of the sitemap, feature of the prototype, etc.) listed with columns for the requested change, the change requester (so important), priority of the change, and an area for the person receiving the feedback to respond. What’s great is that over the course of the project, you have a full picture of changes that have been made. That way, when someone who has been involved sporadically on a project says, “Why’d you change x?”, you can say, “That change was requested by y on this date.” It also helps to be able to say that feedback you’re getting in a round 2 review contradicts feedback in round 1. You’ll probably still end up making the change, but it helps to show your clients them these instances. Maybe next time they’ll be sure to hear from a senior manager in round 1 instead of waiting. One can dream.

Don’t Tie Feedback to Page Numbers

This happens so many times that you’d think I’d never forget to mention it to clients. Unfortunately, I do. I receive a lot of e-mails that request a change or two on a page referenced only by it’s page number. What makes this problematic is that often you end up re-order, adding, and deleting pages over the course of a project and it can be unclear which page actually needs the change. If you don’t want to spend your time digging up older versions and trying to figure our what pages were numbered before, use a unique reference for each page (or item in a feature and functions list) and never, ever change it. Never.

Consolidate Feedback Before Making Changes

Let’s say you get some feedback in person at a review session and will then be wating a few days before you get your feedback spreadsheet back from the client. Should you make the changes you’re sure about? If you get feedback from some stakeholders ahead of the deadline, should you start revising? Deadlines always make us do crazy things, but the answer should be no. I find that unless something is just so obviously wrong that it must be changed, this leads to a lot of rework. For instance, you might hear that some wording needs to change, so you make a first attempt at changing it. Then, you get one stakeholder telling your it should be something else and then another suggestion for the change. You could end up making the same change 3 times when what you really needed to do was ask the client to look at the two suggestions they gave, look at your recommendation, and tell you their preference. In the long run, time is saved.

Be Explicit About What Kind of Feedback Will Be Implemented and When

I worked with a team within a company I worked for on some translations for an international marketing website. Round after round, we would get more and more changes on text that had previously been reviewed an approved. Unable to read the text myself, I wasn’t sure if the translations were wrong or if the reviewers just didn’t like it. As we got closer to launch, I had to draw a line in the sand. I told them that each requested changed needed to me marked as inaccurate translation or preferred wording. We’d make the translation changes before launch and do a preferred wording fix post launch. This gave reviewers more time to think about exactly what they wanted to say and let us launch on time. In other situations, I’ve had to ask specific reviewers to focus only on items which they are responsible for so that a developer isn’t wasting time commenting on marketing copy that has already been approved by a subject matter expert.

Help the PM Help You

If you are fortunate enough to be working with a PM on a project, let them know how they can help you collect and clarify feedback. You might ask them to take a first pass at consolidating feedback and finding any contradictions. They can also help you push back when the requested change is out of scope or, because it will be the 3rd time you’ve changed the same thing, needs a change order. I find that PMs often aren’t sure how to support UX work, so let them know how you see the process working and where they can help the most. For me, feedback that starts with, “We need to find out, ” or “Is the system able to support…” is clearly for the PM. When you’re on a tight deadline and need to make lots of changes, let the PM get the answers and focus on the things you can do now. Otherwise you might be dragged down a rabbit hole and end up very frustrated at 3 a.m. making mistakes you normally wouldn’t.

SlickMap CSS is a simple stylesheet for displaying finished sitemaps directly from HTML unordered list navigation. It’s suitable for most web sites – accommodating up to three levels of page navigation and additional utility links – and can easily be customized to meet your own individual needs, branding, or style preferences.

The general idea of SlickMap CSS is to streamline the web design process by automating the illustration of sitemaps while at the same time allowing for the predevelopment of functional HTML navigation.

• Eliminates the need for additional software
• Easily revised with clients on-the-fly
• Clickable anchors with visible URLs
• Design process results in working HTML code

Website: http://astuteo.com/slickmap/

Demo: http://astuteo.com/slickmap/demo/

]]> http://marketeiro.wordpress.com/2009/09/24/uso-de-sitemaps-no-google-webmaster-tools/ Thu, 24 Sep 2009 00:10:21 +0000 lucasvgr http://marketeiro.wordpress.com/2009/09/24/uso-de-sitemaps-no-google-webmaster-tools/

SEO é um processo onde você tem que otimizar cada página de seu site para obter as melhores posições nos mecanismos de busca. Cada página faz parte de todo o conjunto do site. Um outro item que faz parte do conjunto do site é o arquivo de sitemap, o qual é responsável por informar aos mecanismos de busca quais páginas fazem parte do seu site, quais foram adicionadas recentemente, quais foram modificadas e de quanto em quanto tempo o buscador deve revisitar seu site.

O arquivo de sitemap é escrito usando a linguagem XML,sendo um arquivo bem estruturado e compatível com a maioria dos mecanismos de busca. O arquivo de sitemap permite que sejam incluídas as URLs de seu site, a data que foram criadas, quando foram atualizadas e diversos outros fatores relevantes para os buscadores. Se seu site tiver mais de uma página o ideal é considerar o sitemap.xml como parte de sua estratégia de SEO.

E se eu não usar o sitemap para meu site?

Você não é obrigado a ter um sitemap. Os mecanismos de busca irão eventualmente visitar seu site e se você tiver um site bem estruturado em termos de navegação e usabilidade, os buscadores poderão seguir seus links, visitando cada página sua. Se em sua estratégia de SEO você tiver criado uma grande quantidade de links de entrada, os mecanismos de busca poderão encontrar seu site a partir desses apontamentos.

Agora, se quiser que seu site seja visitado pelos buscadores sempre que criar uma nova página, ter um arquivo de sitemap na raiz de seu site e submeter este arquivo ao Google Webmaster Tools é uma ótima maneira de garantir que seu conteúdo seja sempre enviado para o Google.

Enviando seu sitemap para o Google Webmaster Tools:

A vantagem de se criar um sitemap é poder enviar este arquivo para o Google Webmaster Tools. Usando o Google Webmaster Tools você poderá saber quando foi a última vez que o Google acessou e indexou seus arquivos ou quais os erros foram encontrados, permitindo que você os corrija rapidamente, não prejudicando sua classificação nos resultados do Google.

Com seu sitemap enviado para o Google Webmaster Tools, você poderá definir a frequência que o spider passará em seu site e quais arquivos tem maior prioridade durante a indexação. Aproveite essa ferramenta do Google e melhore seu posicionamento!

Here is my proposed sitemap.

I have structured the site to be less cluttered and confusing for users. With that in mind, the approach I have taken is: everything will be clearly accessible from the home page and; every other page.

Emphasis will be given to the rental properties and ease of booking is the key goal I am aiming for.

There will be no use of third party domains, instead the content with be all housed on www-ski-rentals.com, with the functionality to book online at any point in the online session.

Navigation elements will be consistent throughout and basic language will provide simplified taxonomy supporting a rich user experience. Extra levels of navigation are removed and less confusion will become the benefit in redesigning www.ski-utah-rentals.com in this way.

Access to succinct & accurate content, enticing deals & property displays and easy to use booking facilities will be the design outcome future users will experience on www.ski-utah-rentals.com

Redesigned sitemap - click for larger view

I thought I would start by doing some rough sketching and a Visio version of the current site to better inform my redesign plan.

Doing both of these, before my proposed sitemap has highlighted how unnecessarily complex this website gets with its involvement of 2 other domains and the separation from the core business of the operator (Real Estate) and the niche offering that is www.ski-utah-rentals.com.

My goal is to focus upon the core purpose – to book short-term/casual rental properties in the ski season that are located in the Salt Lake/Utah area and how best this can be achieved in the redesign.

In this very very rough sketch it is clear there is a lot of potential conflict and confusion arising from various sets of navigation. The inclusion of 360house.com and obeo.com site content appears to muddy the information architecture and drive users away from the main without a clear path back.

A very rough sitemap - click for larger view

This sitemap was generated from VISIO, it gives a great overview of the current website, highlighting the broken links and various tangents of www.ski-utah-rentals.com. Sorry I couldn’t export any larger, but it is more a guide to show you my thought processes.

Sitemap - click for a larger view

If you are using wordpress and want to keep the great google happy with sitemaps on Google webmaster tools, have a look at Google XML Sitemaps by Arne Brachhold.

“This plugin will create a Google sitemaps compliant XML-Sitemap of your WordPress blog. It supports all of the WordPress generated pages as well as custom ones. Everytime you edit or create a post, your sitemap is updated and all major search engines that support the sitemap protocol, like ASK.com, Google, MSN Search and YAHOO, are notified about the update.”

Loch.