Google has released another valuable tool for sites. The tool, “Sitemaps”, allows you to notify Google of site updates. As with all Google tools, service is free. Sitemaps – What Is It?
Sitemaps is a platform that let’s Webmasters notify Google of, ta da, changes to a site. In creating tool, Google suggests tool will let it expand coverage of pages on web and speed up time it takes to index sites. This goal appears to conflict with much discussed Google Sandbox, but there is no harm in using Sitemaps. Sitemaps – Uploading Your Changes
Google provides two methods for using Sitemaps. The first involves creating an xml file on your server. The process is a bit detailed, so it will not be covered in this article. You can find specific instructions at:
https://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/docs/en/protocol.html
Sitemaps – Manual Uploads
Google also provides a method to manually upload site changes. The first step is to create a list of URL changes using Notepad. For example, we recently changed a number of pages on NomadJournals.com. To use Sitemaps, we would create following list of URLs:
http://www.nomadjournals.com/
http://www.nomadjournals.com/climbing_log_book.cfm
http://www.nomadjournals.com/travel_accessories_journal.cfm
http://www.nomadjournals.com/bird_watcher_books.cfm
http://www.nomadjournals.com/fly_fishing_equiptment.cfm
http://www.nomadjournals.com/festival.cfm
http://www.nomadjournals.com/hiking_camping_backpacking.cfm