earch engine ranking is largely determined by the
perhaps the most important frequency of website updates. If
element that determines a your website is updated daily,
website’s success. The key to Google is likely to visit
getting your website to appear in everyday. The “depth” of Google’s
the search engine results starts indexing refers to the tiers of
with getting your website’s pages your website’s navigation tree
indexed. By indexed, I mean that will get indexed. For
allowing the Google robot to example, your homepage would be
visit and scan each page on your the first tier and any pages
website to determine its linked from the homepage, such as
relevance. However, many search your “Company Info” page would be
engines have a difficult time 2nd tier pages. Any pages that
finding pages that are buried are only accessible from these
deep in your site’s navigation second tier pages would be
structure. Below I will discuss considered 3rd tier pages.
some techniques that will help
the search engines find those The depth of Google’s index
hidden pages, as well as assist largely depends on each page’s
human visitors to navigate your Page Rank (that addicting little
website. I will be focusing green bar on the Google Toolbar).
exclusively on Google because, Generally, as you move from the
although there are many search 1st to 2nd and from 2nd to 3rd
engines, most websites get 50x tier of your website’s navigation
more traffic from Google than structure, Page Rank will fall.
Yahoo & MSN combined. If your homepage has a Page Rank
Depth of the Index of at least one, your 2nd tier
pages should get indexed. If your
The frequency which Google visits second tier pages have low or no
your site to index pages is Page Rank, then Google probably
hasn’t indexed any pages past is an XML file located on your
this tier and isn’t aware that website’s server that lists all
other pages exist. your website’s pages and
What is a SiteMap? associated attributes. Google
will read this file and will be
A sitemap lists all your aware of all your website’s
website’s pages in a structured, pages, regardless of the depth of
single page format. By viewing the navigation structure. In
your sitemap, a website visitor addition to listing each page of
can quickly and easily be aware your website, you can also
of all your website’s pages and specify attributes such as the
navigate to the area they are frequency of updates and priority
interested in. Although this type of indexing for each page.
of sitemap is geared towards How Does It Work?
human viewers, it is also
beneficial for search engines As I said before, the Google
because it will allow the robots Sitemap is created in XML
to see pages that may be 4 or 5 (Extensible Markup Language). It
tiers deep in your website. Given is similar to HTML, and often
that the Page Rank on you sitemap used these days in RSS and blog
page is ample enough (make sure feeds. Here is an example of an
it is linked from your homepage), entry that would be written for
Google should crawl and index each page in a website:
your whole website.
New Type of SiteMap size="-2">http://www.yoursite.com
There is a new type of sitemap /index.html
available to use – The Google 2007-05-18
SiteMap. It is a little different monthly
from the traditional sitemap – it 0.8
free on the Internet. Just do a
The “url” tag specifies that you search for “Google Sitemap
are entering information for a Generator” and you will find
new URL (website page). The dozens of free tools that will
“lastmod” tag specifies when the “crawl” your website and create
page was last updated. The the sitemap for you.
“changefreq” tag specifies how Conclusion
often the page is updated. The
“priority” tag specifies the Google states that using their
relative priority for indexing of sitemap program will not increase
that page. your search engine rankings. But,
Helpful Tools it will get more of your pages
indexed, and Google in turn
This new type of sitemap is great should deem your website larger
for letting Google know about and more important. In the long
your whole website. The bad news run this should lead to increased
is that this XML file needs to search engine traffic. Don’t
edited in Notepad each time you forget to update your sitemap
make a change or addition that when your website changes. By
effects your website’s navigation keeping both types of sitemaps
structure. If your website updated and accessible, your
changes frequently or you have a website will quickly become a
lot of pages, coding the file by visitor and search engine
hand can be a real pain. favorite.
Fortunately, there are many
sitemap generators available for
About the Author:
Paul Coulter owns and operates a Toronto Website Design Company that specializes in search engine optimization (SEO).
Read more articles by:
Paul J Coulter
Article Source: www.iSnare.com 
