sitemap.xml

[DaculaWeather]

Ok...
The site map is file is http://www.daculaweather.com/sitemap.xml
I never noticed the template file location being wrong. The program generates the style, I didn't do it. It you look at the source though, it's just a regular xml site map.

I also have a site map that has nothing to do with the xml sitemap at http://www.daculaweather.com/site_map_new.php

The program generates a html sitemap also but I don't use it.

[TNETWeather]

Sitemaps normally don't include every page on your site, just the key ones that you want published as such.

Each of your entries have the interval set to Daily which means they are being updated daily.  I doubt that is accurate.

While you do have different priorities, you are using increments which are most likely ignored by most that would use them.

1.00 Important Page
0.50 Less Important Page

Much more beyond that doesn't mean much.

A style for them is not really necessary since they are used by robots, not people (normally).  Plain XML means they load faster.

Note that Google will use them if you publish them to Google (via webmaster tools) but does not use them for ranking of sites or relevance.  Only if your site is already relevant, it *might* use the sitemap to create site-links, but it not something you can force.  This is where the many increments normally end up as a deterrent rather than a benefit.

What is a site link....   use Google and search for just "tnetweather" and you will see site links under the listing. See attachment.

If you don't already a webmaster account setup for your site, goto https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/home and set one up.  You can use the same account to manage many different domains.

[DaculaWeather]

Ok Kevin, what can I do to make my page priorities more relevent? HOW do you do that?

I already have a Google webmaster account and going to make some changes tonight but I would also like to do whatever is necessary to change the page priorities.

[TNETWeather]

There is software that can do that, but I've never had much success with it.  Always turned out more complicated and produced results that didn't work.

As a result, I simply maintain my Sitemap.xml file manually with a simple text editor (UltraEdit)

as an example:

http://www.tnetweather.com/Sitemap.xml

I only add links to pages that I am interested in being indexed as such and ignore the rest.

[DaculaWeather]

Ok... one more question... no, two more questions! 

I have a good text editor so I could do that. I notice that you also add the update frequency for each page. Obviously (I hope!) you don't manually update those pages everyday, are those pages that are getting updated by WD or some other app so they actually ARE updating? I guess the real question is what is the relevence (to the search engines) of the update period in the sitemap file AND does the relationship to what's in the sitemap file vs the actual update time have any meaning to the search engines?
Yes, three questions! 

Thanks Kevin!

[niko]

Kevin

I see you have http://www.tnetweather.com/latlong-convert.php flagged as "always", I guess it's true that page does change each time it's accessed (it calculates based on user input data), but how is that type of change relevant in sitemap?

[TNETWeather]

Frequency is supposed to indicate how often the page contents change.

Some pages like contact info, change seldom.

Some pages like pages that output weather data, change almost every time you look at them.

Technically the latlong-convert page is dynamic so it changes every time it is used.  They goal was to get it listed as a site link, but that has never happened.  I've flipped it around a couple times with no results.

The mystery is how and what gets those generated.  I've had some sites where I can do it on a regular basis like tnetweather site.  There are a ton of sites which have a link to tnetweather on them (like more than 800).  I've had other sites where nothing every seems to work even though they have as good or better sitemaps. 

They key appears to be when a site is relevant, ie  seen as a relevant site to others.   Kinda of hard to fake that.  either you have a lot of quality sites linking to your site as a relevant site or not.

One example is a site I created for a Fishing guide in California Clear Lake area.  No relevant sites link to his mainly because most of the bait shops that have websites no longer control or know how to update them (kinda funny actually) and others won't or will only after they have known him for a couple years.  Tough business to crack into.  so his site which is indexed, has a decent sitemap etc.. has no real ranking on Google and traffic to it is slow.

I ended up creating him a brochure which an 8-1/2" piece of paper cut into 1/3rd strips with printing on both sites.  It is a flyer of sorts which he has gone around town and put in all the tourist info bins at all the hotels, motels, bait shops etc... that seems to have started to work and is starting to get people to look directly at his site for more info.

Having a good sitemap helps, but without the links to go with it, nothing happens, and it is hard to get into search keyword maps until you are either relevant or pay for things like adwords.

[ALITTLEweird1]

Looks like google finally gave me some sitelinks, but im wondering why there not showing when you google snoqualmie weather? Any ideas?

[ALITTLEweird1]

Did some readings about sitelinks. If your not #1 in your search, they wont show which I figured that. I'm normally #1 when searching for Snoqualmie Weather, but with the recent floods here, our local transportation dept. bumped me down to #2. Hopefully in the next few days I'll see if my sitelinks will show up once I get #1 back again.

[ALITTLEweird1]

They added a few sitelinks for my site, but they don't appear like other sites do. All of the links are directly under my description going horizontal. Pic attached. Why do they do this is my question. Thanks.

[ALITTLEweird1]

3 years later, Google, Yahoo and Bing gave my site a real sitelinks for my site. Seems like they all updated at the same time.

[Lemine]

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