With Google Sitemaps you can decide importance placed on these pages by using priority XML tag. This rating system is relative - it only relates to pages on your own site.

Likewise, you can also indicate how frequently your pages changes by using changefreq XML tag. More or less instructing Google when your page will be updated or changed. This is a win-win situation for everyone - Google gets freshest content for its users and you gain more control of frequency of updates done with your site or web pages. This may have a direct influence on profitability of your web site.

For those who are actively marketing thru search engines and keywords - Santa may have come a little early this year. Of course, jury will be out for awhile but Google Sitemaps will probably have a positive impact on your bottom line.

What it means for Google:

For those of us who have been following and watching RSS wildcard for past couple of years - it takes away some of frustration and a little of puzzlement from Google seemingly total disregard of RSS.

RSS is not a fad, it is not a trend and it's not going away. Instead, its importance is growing. It is fast becoming 'the' way data is moved on web. One could even speculate that in very near future all web pages will have an RSS component - perhaps a hybrid of 'XML/HMTL' or an embedded XML code that will work with all browsers, search engines and servers.

For Google to ignore growing importance of RSS, blogging, podcasting, broadcatching, RSS featured Firefox browser, MyYahoo, not to mention all those orange XML logos popping up on most of major sites on web - is beyond comprehension. Why Google does not have an RSS search on its main search engine page still seems baffling. Bringing out a homepage and not including an RSS feature is just foolhardy (They may introduce this feature later).

For those firmly in RSS corner, Google's continued disregard for RSS became more than a little frustrating to observe. It was downright rude! Perhaps Google was waiting to incorporate RSS in a program like this new XML sitemaps? Can this mean that Google has finally accepted importance of RSS and they're starting to make amends? More importantly, could there still be a few more RSS goodies in Google Jar left to be announced?

One can only speculate but when it comes to RSS and Google, lets just hope this is start of a beautiful friendship.

The specifics of a good linking strategy are a bit difficult to nail down. In patent application, Google tries to hide evaluation method by listing factors that “might” go into evaluating links to a site. Factors that “might” be considered include:

1. The anchor text of link.

2. The discovery date of link.

3. The growth rate of links to your site.

4. The rate at which links to a page appear and disappear.

5. The age of links with older links carrying more value.

6. Numerous links to a new site will be looked at as spam, unless some of links are from highly valued sites.

7. Link growth that is constant is optimal.

8. Sudden bunches of new links will be devalued as spam.

A general theme becomes clear as one reads Google patent application. Google values sites that are in it for long term, update regularly and consistently grow in link popularity. Taking this theme into account, it is easy to understand why Google sandbox exists.

A steady approach is key if you intention is to gain top rankings in Google. While delay can be aggravating, results are certainly worth it.