A Google Sitemap is a small XML file that sits on a website and provides information for Googlebot when it comes to visit. Is this file useful? What does it do? How do I create one? How do I get Google to find it? Well, let me tell you.

A Google Sitemap is, essentially, an XML file that contains information on all the web pages in your site. You create this file, submit it to Google, and Google will read it. What Google does from there nobody really knows. You can specify certain parameters in the file such as the location (URL) of your web pages, when they were last modified, how often the pages are updated, and what each page’s “priority” is.

Perhaps Google is relegating these Sitemap submitted results to a secondary index where they compare the results to their live index. This might let them know how people use (and abuse) the program. It is my opinion that the vast majority of participants in this program are website designers and marketers who are trying to give their clients a teenie-weenie leg up on the competition within Google. That’s not to say that there isn’t any value, though.

It is possible that by telling Google where all of your web pages are you can improve your web page saturation in their index. This may indirectly improve your rankings by getting an unlinked or deeply linked page into the index that wasn’t previously there. But as I mentioned earlier, it’s difficult to know if Google is even using Sitemap information in their live index.

So now that you’ve decided that you want to create and submit a Sitemap of your own, here’s how:

1. Firstly, you need to create your XML file. Don’t bother doing it yourself. There is an excellent free online utility at www.sitemapbuilder.net I tend to use Inspyder Sitemap Ceator.

2. You must now submit the Sitemap to Google. Visit Google and login with your Google account. Don’t have one? Don’t worry – that’s free, too. Once you’ve logged in you can add as many Sitemaps as you like.

3. Don’t forget – whenever you update your website (by adding, removing or relocating web pages) be sure to repeat this process. You won’t need to resubmit your sitemap to Google, though.

To see a sitemap just add /sitemap.xml at the end of any root URL.

Google also has a Mobile Sitemap program. I will write on the mobile web sitemap as well as video sitemaps in a future post.