Google Launches New Sitemap Generation Tool
An XML sitemap file that is resident on your server will help Google and other search engines to index your site more easily. This type of sitemap should not be confused with the more common static page type sitemap, which can be added to a website and viewed through a browser. This type of sitemap is designed to help the user navigate your site rather than the search engine.
It is important that you provide as many ways as possible for search engines to index your site and adding an XML Sitemap will help to improve your Website Promotion efforts.
Google has launched a new tool, which uses different ways to identify your web page URL’s and will automatically create an XML Sitemap file.
Called the Google Sitemap Generator, it uses your web server’s traffic, its log files, or the files found on the server to quickly find the page URLs on your site.
Google Webmaster Trend Analyst John Mueller explains “that while most Sitemap generators either crawl websites or list the files on a server, Google have created a different kind of Sitemap generator that uses several ways to find URLs on your website and then allows you to automatically create and maintain different kinds of Sitemap files”.
Once Google Sitemap Generator has collected the URLs, it can create the following Sitemap files for you:
- XML Sitemaps for Web Search according to the sitemaps.org standard
- Mobile Sitemaps for mobile-friendly websites
- Code Search Sitemaps for source code that you make available to users
According to Mueller “sending the URLs to the right Sitemap files is simple thanks to the web-based administration console. This console gives you access to various features that make administration a piece of cake while maintaining a high level of security by default”.
You can learn more about this new tool by reading John’s article in full on the Webmaster Central Blog.
