Newbie with Sitemapper

User 1964159 Photo


Registered User
156 posts

Hi all,
Hoping to launch a new site shortly and I bought Sitemapper. I understand that the site needs to be live for the program to crawl the site and map it, but is there any prep I need to do beforehand? always assuming a clean-up code and try and get it validated etc.:)
User 364143 Photo


Guest
5,410 posts

Nope. Once the site is live, just fire up site mapper and let it map away.
CoffeeCup... Yeah, they are the best!
User 1964159 Photo


Registered User
156 posts

User 514866 Photo


Registered User
1 post

Ok, now I've used the SiteMapper and want to put a link on my site using Visual Web Designer, how do I make this reference that the map page on the site for visitors to discover more about the site.
User 562592 Photo


Registered User
2,038 posts

The sitemapper software creates a file called sitemap.html. Just create a link that references that file and make sure you use an ftp to upload your sitemap files and your good to go.
The philosopher has not done philosophy until he has acted upon the mere conviction of his idea; for proof of the theory is in the act, not the idea.

My Web Development Company: http://www.innovatewebdevelopment.com (Created with Coffee Cup Software).

My Personal Website: http://www.EricSEnglish.com

User 126492 Photo


Ambassador
1,524 posts

A few things to help with your site map.

1. When you run Sitemapper and have your list of pages it has found, find the sitemap.htm or sitemap.html which ever you have called it, right click on it and add to the Exclude list. The reason is that when Google robots visit your site you don't want it continually following pages it has already started to index.

2. Only place a link to your sitemap.html on the index.html page of your site, that is, the entry page, this is fro the same reason as in the above suggestion.

3. Go to http://www.google.com/webmasters/ and create an account.

4. Once you have created an account you need to submit your sitemap.xml file that Sitemapper created, once you have done this and Google has gathered and indexed your site you will be able to use the Webmaster Tools to see how your site is progressing.

Just spend a little title on the Webmaster Tools pages to see how it works, it will be beneficial to you.

Hope this helps.
Jim
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User 562592 Photo


Registered User
2,038 posts

Jim, I don't think its clear why you are wanting him to exclude the sitemap.html file. You want google to index that file, so its not clear to me what you mean by number 1. Maybe restate it and that will help. :)
The philosopher has not done philosophy until he has acted upon the mere conviction of his idea; for proof of the theory is in the act, not the idea.

My Web Development Company: http://www.innovatewebdevelopment.com (Created with Coffee Cup Software).

My Personal Website: http://www.EricSEnglish.com

User 126492 Photo


Ambassador
1,524 posts

Eric

Google spiders a site by reading the .xml file, the sitemap.html is for the webmaster to give visitors a quick layout of the site.

Google will pick up on the sitemap.html from a link placed to it at the bottom of the entry page.
Jim
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User 562592 Photo


Registered User
2,038 posts

Got it. It wasn't clear to me that you were differentiating between the .xml and the .html.
The philosopher has not done philosophy until he has acted upon the mere conviction of his idea; for proof of the theory is in the act, not the idea.

My Web Development Company: http://www.innovatewebdevelopment.com (Created with Coffee Cup Software).

My Personal Website: http://www.EricSEnglish.com

User 126492 Photo


Ambassador
1,524 posts

The crawler needs to only download one copy of each page from your site, so if you have the sitemap.html file within the .xml file it causes the spider to follow the same links again, which is not a good thing, plus it uses extra bandwidth on your server.

Actually, the html file is needed when you are using flash menus, as you know, as yet spiders can't read flash menus, plus, Sitemapper cannot read them as well in which case you have to create a sample html file before mapping your site.
Jim
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