Google has had a feature out for some time that allows webmasters to create a sitemap file to help Google crawlers to find and index the content.

Sounds like a great idea. After all, it is much easier to feed the crawler the content then I hope it finds itself.

But it's a Google map worth? Is it still necessary?

When the Google Sitemap program began my thought was "That's a bit cold, but what is the real benefit?"

So I thought I'd try and submit sitemaps to some sites that I own.

When Google Sitemaps first came out was very difficult to guess what it means to all the entries and how to actually create the site map.

Sure, it was based on XML, and I could clearly see what was expected, but when you have a big place, how to go about creating this?

Then Google came out with http://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/docs/en/sitemap-generator. html, map generator is a program designed to help create a map of your site. This helps speed up the process, but unless you are a programmer, is a bit difficult to implement.

Also, you need access to your server to run the script to generate the sitemap. If you are unsure you should check with your web hosting provider to see if you have access to the terminal to run Python scripts.

Personally, I've never tried Google Sitemapper tool but I have used others. For example, in my personal blog which uses Moveable Type, I found a blog that shows how to build a Movable Type Google http://www. niallkennedy.com/blog/archives/2005/06/google_sitemaps.html outline map. And I used Xenu and an Excel spreadsheet http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?p=199253 that works very well too.

Now that the creation of the site is covered, let's get into the issue at hand. Google map is a really worth the effort?

A few months ago I would have said no, but lately Google has been adding features that make me think otherwise.

For example, if you have gone through the verification process (which is actually placing a blank HTML file on the site and Google to find) and made sure of their 404 errors are properly configured you can access a additional lot of intelligence.

One such feature is the "search queries. "This tells us that queries are used when it appeared in the pages of search results, but has not clicked.

In other words, these are actual search queries that are performed on Google in your site may have appeared, but no click-through is.

From a research point of view of key words, this is a great advantage for you. By monitoring the statistics of your map you can see some of the terms people are using and perhaps determine what you need to make the highest ranking of these terms for you to get the clicks that your competitors are getting.

If you do not have access to records or statistical analysis, the Google map can also tell you what terms actually drove traffic to your site.

In other words, it was in Google searches actually generate clicks to your site.

There are a lot of information. For example, "Crawl stats" shows you how Googlebot sees your site, errors generated by it, and even a PageRank distribution chart detailing how to distribute PageRank.

Therefore, if you're like me and wondered if a Google sitemap is worth I would say yes, it is. The information provided, while most technicians can help solve problems and contribute ideas to help improve its ranking.