Google has introduced a new Sitemap Generator for webmasters to help them create better sitemap files. Google had previously introduced one back in 2005, and watched many other people make their own, but this one is different they say.
“While most Sitemap generators either crawl websites or list the files on a server, we have created a different kind of Sitemap generator that uses several ways to find URLs on your website and then allows you to automatically create and maintain different kinds of Sitemap files,” says Google Webmaster Trends Analyst John Mueller.
The new Sitemap Generator is open source, and finds new and modified URLs from server traffic, log files, or files on the server. Then it can create the following sitemap files:
– XML Sitemaps
– Mobile Sitemaps
– Code Search Sitemaps (for source code you make available to users)
The Generator will also ping Google Blog Search and other search engines that support the sitemaps.org standard for all new and modified URLs (you can optionally include the URLs of the Sitemap files in your robots.txt file).
If you’re unsure how to get started, Mueller says, “Google Sitemap Generator is a server plug-in that can be installed on both Linux/Apache and Microsoft IIS Windows-based servers. As with other server-side plug-ins, you will need to have administrative access to the server to install it. You can find detailed information for the installation in the Google Sitemap Generator documentation.”
Help and support for Google’s new Sitemaps Generator are available. There is a help group as well as a Webmaster Help Forum.
