Google Sitemaps Explained

Google has single-handedly caused the birth of a science and an industry: search engine optimization (SEO).  Which all the advancements the search engine giant has made, webmasters throughout the world have strived to keep in pace with all the changes the Google has been implementing.  This has led to the formation of a highly specialized field of study, that is, breaking the search engine code and finding ways to place a website in the upper bracket of relevant search engine queries.

And once these webmasters begin to think that they have broken the code, Google would once again change the rules.  Google prides itself to be a constantly evolving company, employing advancements for the betterment of the search engine industry.  Google doesn’t fail to reward the loyal webmaster, however.  With its Pay Per Click (PPC) program called AdSense, webmasters can opt to display contextually relevant ads on their pages and Google would pay them every time a visitor would click on the said ads.

Google Introduces Sitemaps

One of Google’s newest implementations is the use of sitemaps.  Sitemaps, quite simply, are like an outline detailing every link and every page of your website.  Sitemaps come in XML formats.  XML is a language like HTML, only, XML is actually simpler to execute once you learn how to familiarize yourself with the said language.  XML is actually already widely used for a lot of syndication purposes these days, including the very popular Really Simple Syndication (RSS).

Basically, by submitting your website’s sitemap to Google, Google promises that its spiders would be able to crawl through every nook and cranny of your website with more efficiency.  This would most definitely result in a higher likelihood of every page of your website getting indexed, and they getting fetched for every relevant query.

Benefits Of Google Sitemaps

There are reasons why you should not neglect Google sitemaps.  Let’s take a look at these outstanding benefits that could possibly revolutionize the search engine optimization game.

• You will be able to alert Google about any changes in your website.  You don’t have to ping the search engines anymore.

• You’d get more efficient categorizing of your web pages.

• There would be a higher likelihood of your web pages getting discovered by search engine users.

• Google sitemaps would soon replace the conventional way of submitting websites, hence, starting this early would give you a good head start.

• Google sitemaps is free.

Creating Google Sitemaps

Creating Google sitemaps is quite easy.

All you have to do is to create a sitemap using XML.  Learning XML would be the hardest part of the process, and XML is something you could learn within 10 minutes at that.  After which, you would just have to upload your sitemap to your web hosting service.  Login to your Google account and submit your sitemap.  Your website and all its pages would correspondingly get indexed.

If you make changes to any of your web pages, you would just have to update your sitemap and resubmit the same to Google through your Google account.

The Google Sitemap Revolution

Google sitemaps provide an extra layer of efficiency for the indexing of your web pages.  Aside from the conventional process of spiders crawling through your web pages to determine relevant content for every query, the said spiders can also crawl through the Google sitemaps to achieve the same purpose.  Having these two processes working side by side would ensure a more effective and expedient way of having your web pages prominently appear in search engine results pages (SERPs).

With Google Sitemaps, the playing field has evolved.  The race is on for supremacy in this new landscape.  Being at the forefront could serve your interest well.