WordPress Your Sitemap and Google | MindVisionMedia.net:
Hello to all from Allan at MindVisionMedia.net and I hope this post finds you well.
Few
realize the importance of your sitemap when it comes to Google. The
sitemap, for those who are not familiar, is a file that tells Google or
some other company, what pages to "fetch" or scan on your website from
time to time and it represents a tree or directory to the pages most
important in your site to your visitors.
This file (usually XML) has
more than one purpose, it assists in updating the search engines and
helps people find you based on your content. This process involves
repeated scans or "fetches" by Google which are set at an interval you
can modify if needed.
The other purpose of directing your visitors
to the pages they want or your sites map, is performed by the same file
but displays in a browsers window as the result of a link or button
being pressed. One function performs behind the scenes with Google and
the other performs on screen as a tool or guide to find your content.
There
are many sitemap Plugins that zip out a sitemap for your site or Blog,
but you'll want to edit or take the time before-hand to set up some
limits before creating the sitemap. The most common form is an XML file
but some programs offer a choice of XML or HTML. I use an HTML version
for my site visitors and an XML version for Google.
The power of the sitemap is in adding instructions that tell the search engine when and how to check for updates in your content,
by date, frequency, by category, by specific page or post, etc. The
point here is to make sure you are not including pages that don't relate
to your target market directly and maximize the intent of the sitemap
to make these Google fetches targeted and effective.
You
don't want Google indexing your contact page, image galleries, pages
not complete yet or made public, or your privacy statements when there
are other more pertinent pages or posts that directly relate to your
target niche. Look at these scans by Google as wasted because Google
scanned unnecessary content for nothing, Nada, zilch, of zero benefit
to you or I or more importantly, our site. This includes any
information (pages, posts, media file pages, etc) that don't help your
search ranking or your seekers find you for the information they need.
Another
negative affect to having Google fetch a bunch of extra pages or every
page in your site is the impact on your sites resources! That's
right, each fetch generates queries in your database. Your query limits
could possibly be affected, compiling any other burdens on the database
currently by having a bloated sitemap in combination with a high fetch
rate.
You may be faced with a slow loading or inaccessible site as a
result and in some cases for large sites, you will have to adjust the
fetch rate for Google's Bots, to reduce the time between automatic
fetches and minimize the burden on your resources.
A good sitemap
will only have the pages or posts most relevant to the content, keyword,
niche combination, thus maximizing Google's efforts to index your
relevant content which will in turn improve your relevancy in searches.
It really is a science, a symbiotic thing when it all works together and
for the big guy's, who have marketing firms, web development companies
or teams working on site refinement, SEO and Analytics, the end result
is amazing, we see their presence everyday. But for the small guy or gal
managing their web presence alone, it can be daunting and time
consuming. Just when you think you're done, there is something else you
need to do to refine your site even more to compete.
Best Practice:
- Always edit and maintain sitemap to give clear instructions to Google Bot
- Target your niche in searches and only add relevant content in sitemap that you want indexed
- Adjust Google fetch rate according to your update frequency and available resources.
So
don't neglect, or entrust your sitemap to some free plugin entirely,
examine your site's map and you will often notice references on there
that are not needed. A little refinement goes a long way and has several
benefits as you can see.
By Allan Whitney Owner/Administrator MindVisionMedia.net
