Ajax software     Free javascripts 
↑


Main Page

We recommend using both traditional and search engine sitemaps.

The Yahoo! sitemap protocol is less popular than the Google protocol, but this chapter demonstrates

code that allows both to be created with the same PHP code. Thus, it is worthwhile to support both for-

mats, because it will require minimal effort. Because the Yahoo! sitemap protocol uses only a subset of

the information that the Google sitemap protocol does, if provided, that information will simply be

ignored when the Yahoo! sitemap is created.

Google and Yahoo! both also support reading news feeds in the formats of RSS and Atom. These for-

mats may suffice for blogs and certain content management systems; often, they are provided by such

applications by default. The problem with these implementations is that they usually only enumerate

the newest content, and this is only really suitable for a blog. If you are doing search engine optimiza-

tion for a blog, feel free to skip this chapter and use the feed functionality provided by your blog appli-

cation instead. Also, theoretically it would be possible to create an RSS or Atom feed with all URLs as

a sitemap for a site that is not a blog, but this is probably not what Yahoo! or Google expects, and we

would not recommend it.

Using Google Sitemaps

Google has a very elaborate standard for providing a sitemap. It allows a webmaster to provide informa-

tion in several formats, but the preferred format is an XML-based standard specified by Google. Google

claims that using Google Sitemaps will result in “a smarter crawl because you can tell [them] when a page

was last modified or how frequently a page changes.” For more information regarding Google Sitemaps,

visit

http://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/

. There is also a Google-run Sitemaps blog at

http://sitemaps.blogspot.com/

.

However, according to Google, “using this protocol does not guarantee that your web pages will be

included in search indexes,” and “… using this protocol will not influence the way your pages are

ranked by Google.” Creating a sitemap for your site entails the following:

1.

Creating a Google account, if you don’t have one:

https://www.google.com/accounts/

NewAccount

.

2.

Creating a sitemap file.

Let’s also note one lesser-known benefit of using sitemaps — mitigation of the dam-

age as a result of content theft and scraper sites. Unfortunately, on the web there are

unsavory characters who, without permission, lift content from your web site and

place it on theirs.

These sites are called most affectionately “scraper sites,” but when it happens to

you, they’re called much less affectionate terms. One of the most difficult challenges

search engines face is assigning the original author of content that is duplicated in

several places. As discussed in Chapter 5, search engines aim to filter duplicate con-

tent from their indices. When you get filtered as a result of scrapers stealing your

content, it can be particularly difficult to resolve. If a well-ranked scraper site (they

do exist) gets spidered with your content before you do, your web site content may be

deemed the duplicate! Because search engine sitemaps will get your new web pages

spidered more quickly, they may help in avoiding some of these content-theft snafus.

201

Chapter 9: Sitemaps

c09.qxd:c09 10:43 201

Ajax software     Free javascripts 
→