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indigo
This specific purpose for XML and their developers was to design a new coding system that is easily read by humans and machines. With that accomplished, XML had to conform to all W3C and web standards to produce the current, highly effective XML code of today.
XML Sitemaps are very efficient ways of building a “table of contents” for the URLs of your domain. Helping search engine spiders locate and crawl all of your inner pages, this is a definite benefit to your SEO marketing efforts. Not only for SEO, but thousands of different tracking and analytics programs use XML code to help them track website progress, visitors, and a lot more detailed factors. Make sure that you are looking at all possibilities when building and developing your own domain, XML sitemaps, PCrobots, and other simple scripts can make your transition from new site to established blog much quicker.
Search engines send out thousands and thousands of crawlers each day for the purpose of finding and indexing web properties throughout the world. Sitemaps are one of the simplest tools to install on your website that will make this process more efficient and effective. Giving spiders a clear navigation to your domain and inner URL structure, showing off your content and media as fast and effectively as possible. With most established websites, Google and Bing index every new URL that is setup unless it is blocked by PCRobots.txt or the sitemap. You’ll be able to upload your sitemap into the webmaster tools admin console, do this as soon as your content is ready for release.
XML Sitemap Benefits:
- Submit to search engine webmaster tools – Google and Bing
- Help crawlers find additional pages and posts on your website
- Get content and media indexed faster
- Ensure that all of your inner pages are being indexed and ranked on search engines
How to Setup a XML Sitemap:
*WordPress Users = download Google XML Sitemaps or similar plugin to automatically create your sitemap at http://www.yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml
- Create a sitemap online – there are a ton of great free sitemap generators online -> http://www.xml-sitemaps.com/
- Download and save the sitemap .XML file
- Upload the .XML file to your website directory
- Your sitemap should exist at /sitemap.xml
- Submit sitemap URL to search engines, blog directories, and others
My Simple XML Sitemap
Types of Sitemaps:
- Text XML
- Video
- Multi-level (sites over 500pages)
- News
- Mobile
Sitemaps can also be produced in other script formats such as HTML, ROR, and others. This can be used if you are trying to specifically cater to a certain indexing system or directory outside of the search engines.
Depending on your needs you may want to break up your sitemaps into multiple levels or build video sitemaps since you have such a major database online. No matter what type of site and index you are currently displaying online, you should be sure to include sitemaps for the benefit of search engine rankings and SEO progression.
