If you are struggling to get your site indexed within Google, you may be missing a Sitemap! The Sitemap Protocol allows you to inform search engines about URLs on your website that are available for crawling by their search “spiders”.

In its simplest form, a Sitemap is an XML file that lists URLs for any given site. The sitemap also enables webmasters to customise additional information about each URL, such as when it was last updated, how often it changes and how important the page is in relation to other URLs within the site. This gives the search engines a better idea of how your site is organised and can therefore crawl and prioritise the pages more effectively. Read the rest of this entry »