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Google Does RSS or How You Can Benefit From Google's New Sitemaps!
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| by Titus Hoskins |
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 Google
Does RSS
Has Google finally embraced RSS with their new XML powered
Sitemaps program? Well, sort of, but it seems more like a
hug than a strong impassioned embrace!
It does use XML technology which allows for the crawling
and updating of your site's web pages. You can even
include your entire web site (all urls) with this indexing
program. For anyone targeting the search engines,
especially Google, this program (still in beta) is a MUST
HAVE.
If you require timely updating of your most popular pages
Google's new Sitemaps may prove indispensable. It's a
little premature to assess the importance or impact of
Google's new program but anyone wanting to give their site
a competitive edge should be gearing up.
How it works:
There are several ways to set-up a XML Sitemap, perhaps
the easiest way is to use the open-source Generator which
you can download from Google. This is a Python file that
you can upload to your webserver and this generator will
create a sitemap from your 'URL lists, webserver
directories, or your access logs'.
It would probably be wise to check with your hosting
provider to see if they can accommodate this Generator on
your webserver. It you have a small site there should be
no problem but if your site runs into the 1,000's of URLs
or pages - check to see how much bandwidth such a system
will take up. It's better to be safe than sorry!
Once done, you have to then submit your newly generated
XML sitemap to Google - the search engine will use this
XML sitemap to update and index your site whenever you
make changes on your site. You will need to have a Google
account.
You may also submit text files containing URLs from your
web site to be included in Google Sitemaps but these text
files will have or will be given low priority for the time
being.
To get started on your own Google Sitemaps Account you can
click here:
https://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/login
What's great about it:
Besides seeing Google finally grab the RSS wildcard, it
gives you better control of how and when the search
engines update your web site pages. Perhaps, the most
important aspect for Internet Marketers, you can now
assign the importance that's given to any of your
particular pages. As most marketers know, certain pages on
your web site are more important than others; these pages
earn money, build your contact list, or direct your site's
visitors in the right direction. In other words, you can
now place more emphasis on your web site's bread and
butter' pages. A BIG Plus!
With Google Sitemaps you can decide the importance placed
on these pages by using the priority XML tag. This rating
system is relative - it only relates to the pages on your
own site.
Likewise, you can also indicate how frequently your pages
changes by using the changefreq XML tag. More or less
instructing Google when your page will be updated or
changed. This is a win-win situation for everyone - Google
gets the freshest content for its users and you gain more
control of the frequency of the updates done with your
site or web pages. This may have a direct influence on the
profitability of your web site.
For those who are actively marketing thru the search
engines and keywords - Santa may have come a little early
this year. Of course, the jury will be out for awhile but
Google Sitemaps will probably have a positive impact on
your bottom line.
 What it means for Google:
For those of us who have been following and watching the
RSS wildcard for the past couple of years - it takes away
some of the frustration and a little of the puzzlement
from Google seemingly total disregard of RSS.
RSS is not a fad, it is not a trend and it's not going
away. Instead, its importance is growing. It is fast
becoming 'the' way data is moved on the web. One could
even speculate that in the very near future all web pages
will have an RSS component - perhaps a hybrid of 'XML/HMTL'
or an embedded XML code that will work with all browsers,
search engines and servers.
For Google to ignore the growing importance of RSS,
blogging, podcasting, broadcatching, the RSS featured
Firefox browser, MyYahoo, not to mention all those orange
XML logos popping up on most of the major sites on the web
- is beyond comprehension. Why Google does not have an RSS
search on its main search engine page still seems
baffling. Bringing out a homepage and not including an RSS
feature is just foolhardy (They may introduce this feature
later).
For those firmly in the RSS corner, Google's continued
disregard for RSS became more than a little frustrating to
observe. It was downright rude! Perhaps Google was waiting
to incorporate RSS in a program like this new XML
sitemaps? Can this mean that Google has finally accepted
the importance of RSS and they're starting to make amends?
More importantly, could there still be a few more RSS
goodies in the Google Jar left to be announced?
One can only speculate but when it comes to RSS and Google,
lets just hope this is the start of a beautiful
friendship. |
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| About
the Author: To add RSS to your Site within minutes -
download this simple RSS
Report and Guide Copyright © 2005 Titus
Hoskins of BWMagic's
Free Marketing Tools & Guides This article
may be freely distributed if this resource box stays
attached. |
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