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Google Sitemap For Idiots by
Stephen Brennan
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I don’t mind admitting that
every time some new fangled idea or piece of technology arrives
online, I have a small fit and wonder how long it’s going to
take me to understand what it is, what it’s for and whether I
need to use it to stay ‘up there’. It’s even more
frightening when the experts start explaining it and really only
serve to confuse the matter when they use their 'techno-speak'.
Here I am still wrestling with
RSS and along comes Google with their Sitemap program. I must
admit, it sounds simple enough until you read a couple of
articles about how to generate your sitemap or go to Google’s
instructions and manage to get completely confused. I don’t
know what it is, although I know it’s not just me. I know too
many people who work online and have the same problem. Maybe we
just went to school in the wrong decade (seventies or maybe
earlier). But then, we can spell and write, can’t we…
For those who need to know what
the Google Sitemap program is about, here it is in the nutshell
and in MY language - English. At least, what I think it is,
anyway:
Google, I imagine have become
tired of crawling billions of websites, most of which are
largely inactive or abandoned or both. So they are giving
webmasters (website owners) the opportunity to play a part in
the frequency and importance placed on the crawling of our
websites. Even to the point of giving us the ability to
prioritize these aspects of the individual pages. In doing so,
they are also having us do some of their work for them, which is
OK, seeing as they are our websites. I think it's grand.
In their instructions, Google
give a few different methods by which you can generate a
suitable Sitemap and how to get it onto your server etc. To be
honest, I found it totally confusing. They do suggest that we
use their Sitemap generator, but it is only compatible if your
server uses a thing called ‘Python 2.2’ and you need to know
the command that launches it… WHAT??? There’s that ‘nerd
stuff’ again. Every time I send a simple question to my
webhost, like, “what’s your name”, I get three paragraphs
of unintelligible ‘techno-speak’, so how do I find out if I
have some 'Snake-thingy' on my server? So, Google’s
instructions are no good to me, or anyone like me. Even their
alternatives, although slightly simpler, don’t answer ALL the
questions I need answered in order to get through it in one
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Fortunately,
through trial and error (or maybe because I may actually be
turning into a ‘nerd’), I can tell you how to generate a
Sitemap, upload it to you server (and more importantly, WHERE to
put it) and how to submit it to Google.
First, go to
this website - http://www.blocklayer.com/googlesitemap/ and you
will find that all you need to do is put the URL of you website
(the main domain name) into the appropriate field and click “Create
map”. It will create a list of the pages in your website and
will, helpfully, also list any broken or inactive links (which
you can go about fixing). You can change the frequency that each
page is crawled and rate it's importance. Obviously, pages which
change often, need to be crawled more often etc. When you’re
happy with your list of pages, you click on “XML Sitemap”
and it creates a coded XML Sitemap. XML is the code that’s
used in RSS, which looks much like HTML.
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Now, and this is
the magic bit, you need to do one more thing before you can upload
to your server. You need to copy and paste the XML code to a ‘Notepad’
document. You call the file ‘sitemap.xml’. Now the WHOLE of
that file name goes in the ‘Filename’ box,. The ‘.xml’
doesn’t go into the ‘file type’ box, like it would in a
Word, Excel or any other program. Low and behold, the little ‘Notepad’
program magically recognizes the fact that it is XML format (I don’t
know how, probably mirrors…) and the file you end up with has
the '.xml' file extension. That is what you upload to your server.
It’s very easy. You just place it under what they call the
‘Root Directory’. I’ve learned that this is the ‘Main
Folder’ (I don’t know why they just don’t say ‘Main Folder’,
but…). So, it goes into the very first folder of your website.
If using cPanelX® it’s called ‘html public’. If using
Frontpage®, it’s simply the folder with the main URL as it’s
name.
My first question was, “What about Sub-Domains?” Do I have
to submit separate Sitemaps or will they be included in the one I
generate for the Main Domain? The answer is that Sub Domains won’t
be included in the Main Sitemap, you need to generate a separate
one by simply using the Sub-Domain URL in the generator. This is
handy because each Sub-Domain will usually have unique needs and
it would be more than awkward if they were all included in the
main Sitemap.
Obviously, in the case of a Sub Domain, the ‘Root Directory’
or ‘Main Folder’ you put this Sitemap into is the Main
Sub-Domain folder, that is, the first one under the Main Domain
folder.
Submitting to Google is a really easy process. You just log
into your Google account (you have to have one) and go to the ‘Add
a Sitemap’ section and enter the COMPLETE filename of the
sitemap, which will be: http://www.mydomain.com/sitemap.xml
and click on ‘Submit URL’.
Although I have had a little fun with the fact that I still,
after several years earning a living online, don't understand a
lot of the 'lingo'. To those of you who are in the same position
or those who are new to this Internet business thing, I can
honestly say, you will get a handle on it and find that all these
things, which may seem completely overwhelming at first, will make
sense and come more easily if you take the time to read a little
and find out. I've obviously surrendered to this concept and it
has made things much easier.
Oh God! I think I'm a Nerd!
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