Google has released another valuable tool for sites. The tool, Sitemaps, allows you to notify Google of page updates. As with all Google tools, the accomadation is free of cost.

Sitemaps What Is It?

Sitemaps is a platform that lets Webmasters notify Google of, ta da, changes to a site. In making the tool, Google suggests the tool will let it expand coverage of pages on the web and speed up the time it takes to index sites. This target appears to conflict with the much discussed Google Sandbox, but there is no harm in using Sitemaps.

Sitemaps Uploading Your Changes

Google provides two methods for using Sitemaps. The first involves building an xml document on your server. The process is a bit detailed, so it will not be covered in this article. You can find distingguished instructions at:

https://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/docs/en/protocol.html

Sitemaps Manual Uploads

Google also provides a method to manually upload site changes. The first step is to create a list of the URL changes using Notepad. For example, we recently changed a number of pages on NomadJournals.com. To use Sitemaps, we would create the following list of URLs:

http://www.nomadjournals.com/
http://www.nomadjournals.com/climbing_log_book.cfm
http://www.nomadjournals.com/travel_accessories_journal.cfm
http://www.nomadjournals.com/bird_watcher_books.cfm
http://www.nomadjournals.com/fly_fishing_equiptment.cfm


http://www.nomadjournals.com/festival.cfm

http://www.nomadjournals.com/hiking_camping_backpacking.cfm


Next, save the file as an .xml file. Go to Google Sitemaps at:

https://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/login

Just login and upload the file. Thats it.

Common Questions

1. Do you positive need an account with Google?

You do not absolutely need an account with Google to make use of Sitemaps. That being said, you should open one since Sitemaps lets you monitor the progress of the indexing of your changes.

2. Will Using Sitemaps Help My Rankings?

Ah, we get to the crux of the matter. Unfortunately, Google clearly states using Sitemaps has no effect on rankings. There is a small benefit, however, in at least building sure your pages are being indexed.

3. Will Google index all of the URLs in my Sitemap?

Surprisingly, the answer is no. Still, Google wouldnt be furnishing the tool if it didnt have some benefit. According to Google, using Sitemaps will have no negative impact on your web page rankings.

4. How long will it take for my URLs to be crawled after I generate and submit a Sitemap?

Google provides no answer to this question. Instead, it simply says indexing times should pass as the tool is refined.

In Closing

Using Google Sitemaps is probably value the effort. If nothing else, you will be able to monitor the indexing process and progress. The best way to get your website indexed, however, remains creating links to your web page .

Halstatt Pires is with http://www.marketingtitan.com - an Internet promoting and advertising business comprised of a search engine optimization specialist providing meta tag optimization services and Internet selling consultant making available internet promoting solutions through integrated develope and programming services.