XML stands for extensive mark up language; it is a language much like HTML. It is not a replacement of HTML; both languages were designed for different goals. HTML was designed to display data, an XML was designed to transport and store data. The focus of HTML is how the data looks like while the focus of XML is what the data is.

What the heck are XML SITEMAPS?

In case you geniuses didn’t know, XML was designed to structure, store and transport information, in itself XML document does not do anything and someone has to write the  software in order to send, receive or display it. With XML one can invent their own tags as XML language has no predefined tags. Amongst most techies it’s agreed that XML is the most important tool for data transmission across different applications and is also popular in the area of storing and describing information.

SEO Sitemaps

XML sitemaps basically allows us the “webmasters of the universe” to list URLs for a site and inform Google and other search engine regarding all links on our websites that are available for crawling.  Not only do they show links, but XML sitemaps allows additional information to be included about each URL including when it was last updated and important the URL is in relation to other URLs on the website. This allows search engines to crawl more intelligently, if you don’t believe me read up on Google webmaster central. Also we’re a big fan of http://www.xml-sitemaps.com/ where users can build a Site Map online. It’s free online wizard and generates other types of sitemaps as well.

Here at PEK interactive, we found XML sitemaps are very beneficial as some sites use heavy Flash content or interactive media sites that is not normally processed by search engines and there may be some areas of the website that are not available through normal browsable interface. Some huge websites like www.pcRUSH.com have a lot of indexing… so it’s critical to keep a clean sitemap. They monitor and maintain a close watch on their sitemap.

The webmaster generally generates a XML sitemap regarding all the existing URLs on his website and submits it to search engines. Since most of the search engines use the same protocol, having XML sitemap benefits SEO search engines having updated information.

How to create XML sitemaps

In order to get the website indexed by major search engines, one needs to have a sitemap. XML sitemaps allows the search engines to see exactly what files you have. There are many tools for creating XML sitemaps. The general steps for creating a XML sitemap include first entering the URL of the homepage in the sitemap and then removing session IDs from the home page so as to allow better crawling of your website. Also there is an option of how frequently the pages will change and last date of file modification. After all this information is entered into a sitemap generator, viola! a XML sitemap is created. You then go to your Google Webmaster account and add your sitemap URL. If your using an up-to-date browser, you can see our PEK Interactive Sitemap as an example.

There is wide and detailed information regarding XML sitemaps that is available over the internet. This is useful information benefiting the search engines and allows for better SEO results.

If you have any burning questions or need us to submit your Google sitemap, just contact us and we’ll be glad to help.

About the author:
Sergio Kajirian is the co-founder of PEK Interactive. PEK Interactive offers in-house search engine optimization services as well as SEO mentoring, link strategies, and SEO copyrighting and custom search friendly web development. PEK provides frequently publishes SEO resources with the latest tips in search engine optimization and search engine friendly website design.

Sergio Kajirian is the co-founder of PEK Interactive. PEK Interactive offers in-house search engine optimization services as well as SEO mentoring, link strategies, and SEO copyrighting and custom search friendly web development. PEK provides frequently publishes SEO resources with the latest tips in search engine optimization and search engine friendly website design.

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