What is a Google Sitemap file?

One of my clients forwarded me an interesting email today. It was from a company offering to create a “Google Sitemap file” for his site for just $125. They also offered an MSN, Yahoo, and General file, each for the low, low cost of $125. That’s a whopping four files for just $500. What a bargain!

Or not.

What is a “Sitemap file?” It is basically an .html file describing the contents of a website which, converted to an .xml file, offers easy skimming for search engine spiders. Is this something your website should have? Absolutely. In fact, it probably already does.

In my client's case, as soon as his website went live Page 1 Solutions created a sitemap file which we submitted to both Google and Yahoo, and that the other search engines are free to spider at their own convenience. (This is something we include for every client.)

Do the other search engines spider those files? Let’s do an experiment. Go to www.msn.com and search for “Page 1 Solutions.” It probably isn’t a big surprise that Page 1’s homepage shows up at the top of the list. When I scroll down, though, I find four more pages that belong to Page 1, which means the search engine spiders have found them and recognize that they pertain to my search phrase. All without an expensive additional sitemap file or four. (Dare I mention that there are sitemap-generating programs which can be downloaded for free...?)

The moral of the story is, if you receive an advertisement for something pertaining to your website – particularly if the company wants to charge you big bucks – call or email your Account Manager and ask if it is something we recommend or provide. If we don’t offer it, we can let you know if we think it would be worth pursuing. You might find that your website has already been optimized in that respect.