In the never ending battle of increasing traffic to web sites, one of the more crucial elements needed to ensure success is the site map.\u00a0 Exactly what is an XML site map?\u00a0 How does one create an XML site map?\u00a0 Answering these questions will enable us to create an XLM site map that search engines will be able to index properly.<\/p>\n
What is a site map?<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/strong><\/p>\n A site map is the listing of all the pages held within a web site.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 The listing starts at the home or base page and then branches out accordingly.\u00a0 This listing can be done in several different formats \u2013 XML, text file or a syndication feed (RSS).\u00a0 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.\u00a0 As XML is a standard by\u00a0 most search engines, XML is the best formatting choice.<\/p>\n A bit about protocol<\/strong><\/p>\n To be truly effective, an XML site map should follow the standard site map protocol.\u00a0 It must begin with the opening tag <urlset> and end with the closing tag <\/urlset>.\u00a0 Within the <urlset> tag the proper namespace should be declared \u2013 in most cases this would be “http:\/\/www.sitemaps.org\/schemas\/sitemap\/0.9”.\u00a0 The numbering at the end of this url indicates the latest site map schema version as indicated by the sitemaps.org site (the official site for site map protocols and more).\u00a0 Within the <urlset> beginning and closing tags, each page within the web site is listed.\u00a0 This listing begins with the <url> tag and ends with the <\/url> closing tag.\u00a0 The <url> set then contains all the vital information regarding the specific page.\u00a0 This includes the actual url, the last date the page was modified, how often the page changes and a priority numbering.\u00a0 At a minimum, each <url> set must contain the url of the page or <loc>.\u00a0 The remaining information is optional.\u00a0 More information on protocols and the proper creation of a site map can be viewed at http:\/\/www.sitemaps.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n How to create one<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/strong><\/p>\n The creation of a site map is quite easy.\u00a0 If your web site is only a few pages, you can create an XML site map manually.\u00a0 However, if your web site is rather extended, the best option would be to use one of many different programs available on the web.<\/p>\n