How to Create a Site Map
- What is a site map?
- What is a site index?
- Creating the map.
- Make one for your site.
After reading this article, you will have a basic understanding of principles associated with site indexing and indexing your site content. You will be able to create a map on your own that is within the standards of Google.
Sitemaps
There are two types of site maps: the content index and the search engine index defined as the Sitemap with an uppercase “S”.
This article is concerned with the search engine. We want to tell the spiders and crawlers how to read our site.
Site Index
The content index is a document that lists content for visitors to your site. A link is displayed on your web pages that will take your visitor to this index and displays a listing of your site content. Some people call this a “sitemap” but it’s really a part of the navigational menu, an extra page on the site.
Map Creation.
HTML tags communicate the important structural information about your site. The information is summarized using tags and makes it easy for the spiders and crawlers to digest.
Indexing.
To make sure that your entire site is indexed, the xhtml Sitemap document is necessary.
You probably thinking, “What the heck?”.
But, don’t worry. You can do it. Here is the help you need. It’s free and quick, 4 steps and a little house keeping at your hosting company.
See http://www.xml-sitemaps.com/ for detailed and free instructions.
Make me a Sitemap.
The quickest way to create a Sitemap is to use a text editor such as Notepad.
- Open a new text document.
- Type the full URL address (including “http://www.”) of your index page.
- Type the full URL of each page you want indexed, each on a separate line.
- Save the file as “sitemap” with the “txt” or text-only extension.
- Upload this file to your root directory.
This is how to create a sitemap for your site promotion.