Using Sitemaps to optimize the crawling of your site

To enable Search Engines to effeciently crawl your site for new pages or updated pages, Google provides what it calls the Google Webmaster Tools. Using this you can specify the sitemap file for your blog.

The Google Webmaster Tools Page for Online Presence

Why do I need to use a sitemap?
Multiple reasons actually:

• It helps search engines easily identify new or updated content on your site.
• It reduces the load on your webserver as the crawling is more efficient

What does the Sitemap file look like?
Its an XML file and you can provide a link to the file to Google via the link mentioned above to enable them to efficiently crawl your site.

How do I create this file?
Its quite simple if you’re using Wordpress. Just use a Google Sitemap Plugin and make your life simple. The plugin will automatically regenerate the XML file whenever you add/change content on your blog. Its that simple!! Infact, the plugin notifies Google and Yahoo! whenever you change any content on your site.

How do I do the same for Yahoo! and MSN?
The same XML file works for all the 3 major search engines. Infact, the plugin allows you to submit the XML page to Yahoo! also.

Does this mean my new pages will show up immediately on Google/Yahoo?
Not necessary. The plugin just notifies the sites. When Google/Yahoo schedules the next crawl for your site, is up to them!

You can find more details on Sitemaps at Sitemaps.org.

The Online Presence Sitemap is accessible at here.