A schematic map of your website

XML Sitemap protocol allows a webmaster, site owner or business to inform search engines about the pages on a website that are available for crawling. Likewise you can keep some pages 'private' by not listing them and providing there are no other links on your site to these private pages they will not be read by Search Engines. A search engine is not 'magic' you have to invite them in to crawl your pages, you have to open the door for them.

Complicated concepts when explained in a simple way make things easier to understand. Knowledge enables understanding, a schematic plan, a diagram or a map, is a key or a link to this understanding.  A Sitemap is an XML file (and this is exactly what it  is, a schematic map of your website) that lists the URLs contained on a site and contains additional information about each URL: when it was last updated, how often it changes, and how important it is in relation to other URLs in the site. This allows search engines to crawl the site more intelligently.

Once you have created an XML sitemap and have loaded it up to your site what do you do with it? Google recommends you to first submit your Sitemap using Google Webmaster Tools. This means you will be able to validate your site, claiming ownership or access rights to the site, informing them you are responsible for updating, managing or optimizing etc. This will ensure that your Sitemap details are in your Webmaster Tools. In addition to your Webmaster Tools, you can also submit (and resubmit) your Sitemap using the following methods:

• Sending a HTTP request to Google

• Including your Sitemap location in your robots.txt file

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