By Hostway
Submitting an XML site map with a link to every page of your Web site is a great way to boost your search engine optimization (SEO) efforts. Sounds like a lot of work, right? It’s actually a simple copy/paste task when you use one of the free XML site map generators available on the Internet.
What’s an XML Site Map?
An XML site map is simply a list of links to every page on your Web site formatted in the Extensible Markup Language (XML). The language is designed to transport and store data, which is why Google and other search engines chose XML as the accepted format for site maps stored in their databases.
A Site Map Generator Saves Time
Fortunately, you don’t have to know XML to create a site map to submit to search engines. Just visit www.xml-sitemaps.com, enter your URL and click Start. The site will automatically generate a site map for up to 500 pages of your Web site.
How to Submit Your Site Map
Once you have your automatically generated site map, all you have to do is submit the file to the major search engines, using a Webmaster account you’ll need to create for each search engine.
Here’s where you submit your site map for Google, Yahoo! and Bing:
Left to their own devices, spiders for all three sites will find and index your Web site eventually, but sometimes they miss a page and don’t index your full site. Ensure that your entire site is indexed by submitting an XML site map to the search engines yourself.