Sitemaps and update frequency

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Sitemaps and update frequency

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All Forums >> Web Development >> Search Engine Optimization and Web Business >> Sitemaps and update frequency

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Starhugger Posts: 661 Joined: 4/12/2005 From: Canada Status: offline	Sitemaps and update frequency - 9/8/2008 15:03:41 I'm putting an XML sitemap together for a client. The site is a new make-over from the old one, with a new structure and often new names for even the same pages. Although the new site went live 3 weeks ago, I'm still seeing a wild mishmash of old and new URLs when I do a site search, for example. So I'm hoping a sitemap will clarify Google's confused brain. I've never done a sitemap before and I only know generally how to go about it. I'm using GSiteCrawler (recommended in a thread here) and it seems great. I'm not sure what's at stake when I choose the frequency of updating each page. I could put "daily" for all pages, but the truth is most pages won't be updated but once or twice a year as a general rule, if ever. The rest are intermittent, ranging from weekly to every few months on the average. Daily would probably be more of a coincidence than a reflection of the actual page update rate. Does Google penalize or frown upon using a higher frequency than a page really warrants? Do they ever compare your sitemap frequency with the actual frequency (using the modified date or something)? I've seen references to a Google warning about slowing down site performance because the person has listed all pages as dynamic when they're not, but I don't know if there's more at stake than a friendly warning about site performance. I wouldn't want to underestimate the update frequency and have the site lag behind. But if I say "weekly" and in reality it turns out to be more like every month or two, would Google think badly of the site because of that? Also, the update frequency of some sections is likely to vary for this site at different times of the year. How to choose? The person who will maintain the site is not likely to know much or anything about sitemaps, so I'm not sure I could just tell them to "upload a new sitemap when you change something." Any help would be much appreciated! Starhugger


treetopsranch Posts: 1651 From: Cottage Grove, OR, USA Status: offline	RE: Sitemaps and update frequency - 9/8/2008 16:12:17 Here's sitemap explained: "A hierarchical visual model of the webpage’s of a website. Generally Site maps help internet users navigate easily through a Web site that has many pages by displaying to the user a list or diagram of the entire website's contents. Think of sitemap similar to an index for a book or a table of contents, the sitemap makes it a lot easier for an internet user to find information on a website without having to search or navigate through the site's webpage’s." So reading that bit above, you would think that you would NOT have to change or update the sitemap each time you made a change to you web. In fact you should not constantly change your sitemap unless you add or remove a important section of your web Like a menu item deleted or added. _____________________________ Don from TreeTops Ranch, Oregon "I've got a taste for quality and luxury" (in reply to Starhugger)


rdouglass Posts: 9280 From: Biddeford, ME USA Status: offline	RE: Sitemaps and update frequency - 9/8/2008 17:03:39 quote: A hierarchical visual model of the webpage’s of a website Don, I don't think that's quite what they had in mind. I think they were after the XML maps that you submit to Google via WebMaster Tools. If that is so, I run local ASP scripts that crawls my sites and I just default all of them to 1 week. I get no penalties or warnings or anything like that ever. The only 'warnings' I ever get is if I set all the pages to the same priority. I don't seem to get errors or penalties but just those annoying warnings. Google doesn't seem to mind at all that they all say "Weekly". _____________________________ Don't take you're eye off your final destination. ASP Checkbox Function Tutorial. (in reply to treetopsranch)


TexasWebDevelopers Posts: 761 Joined: 2/22/2002 From: Dallas, TX Status: offline	RE: Sitemaps and update frequency - 9/8/2008 18:35:17 We've had some client sites that we're being crawled weekly or several times per week, but when the site content wasn't updated regularly over a 12 month period the Google crawls become fewer and fewer until they were crawling only once every two months or so--even with more frequent site updates over the next 12 month period it seemed much harder to get the spider back to the site on a regular basis....two sites were PR5 and one was PR4 (somewhat understandable). _____________________________ Follow us on TWITTER (in reply to rdouglass)


Starhugger Posts: 661 Joined: 4/12/2005 From: Canada Status: offline	RE: Sitemaps and update frequency - 9/9/2008 19:57:34 Thanks very much for your replies. After talking with the network teckies for the client, it seems it might be a moot point anyway. Seems they don't support sitemaps in their current CMS version. The next version probably will, but won't be available for another several months. I've heard about HTML sitemaps (instead of XML) and I want to look into that to see if it might be an alternative option, although their CMS will put doodoo all over whatever I put together. Does anyone have any experience with this kind of dilemma? Can an HTML sitemap (submitable to Google) be just a section of a regular HTML page? Thanks! Starhugger (in reply to TexasWebDevelopers)


rdouglass Posts: 9280 From: Biddeford, ME USA Status: offline	RE: Sitemaps and update frequency - 9/9/2008 22:28:10 Google's sitemaps (at least the one's you submot to Webmaster Tools) are XML representations of your site. If you have ASP available, I've built most of mine based on this: http://www.iteam5.net/francesco/sitemap_gen/ and there are many out there like it that will crawl your site in other languages if you don't have ASP. If you have text links to all pages of your site (which you should anyways), a crawler like this will build an XML sitemap for you. I just put that code on an ASP page (with minor mods) and point Google to the .ASP page and it gives Google all the info it needs. _____________________________ Don't take you're eye off your final destination. ASP Checkbox Function Tutorial. (in reply to Starhugger)


Starhugger Posts: 661 Joined: 4/12/2005 From: Canada Status: offline	RE: Sitemaps and update frequency - 9/10/2008 0:05:31 The pages seem to be pretty much htm, although I'm sure I've seen some aspx somewhere too (but possibly in development mode, not live). From what I'm seeing as I research this, Google only accepts XML format. I guess the HTML format sitemaps I was seeing references to were just a sitemap for users, not to provide info for Google. It seems I'm SOL on this one until their new version is available (assuming the Google sitemap will be part of it). Thanks for trying, though, Roger! SH Edited: I should also explain that I am not able to upload any kind of page directly to the site -- only through the CMS, which only allows the editing of what is in the Body of the page. And the CMS teckies "do not support" Google sitemap pages. So I think I'm stuck living with whatever Google can crawl on its own. I do have text links or navigation links to all relevant pages, though. I'll just have to wait for Google to catch up with itself, I guess. < Message edited by Starhugger -- 9/10/2008 0:19:45 > (in reply to rdouglass)


rdouglass Posts: 9280 From: Biddeford, ME USA Status: offline	RE: Sitemaps and update frequency - 9/10/2008 8:22:24 quote: From what I'm seeing as I research this, Google only accepts XML format. Just to clarify starhugger, that script does create XML for Google sitemaps. Just because it is an ASP file, that doesn't matter to Google. As long as Google sees the appropriate XML when it calls it, it can be named virtually anything. However, since you can't upload any files, you can't even put a hand-built one then, can you? _____________________________ Don't take you're eye off your final destination. ASP Checkbox Function Tutorial. (in reply to Starhugger)


Starhugger Posts: 661 Joined: 4/12/2005 From: Canada Status: offline	RE: Sitemaps and update frequency - 9/10/2008 8:38:34 is right. This CMS has been very awkward to work with sometimes. It seems rather crude and not very sophisticated, and updates to newer versions often prove to be as much an annoyance to end users than a help, since it can sometimes mean having to adjust old web pages. But it's paying my rent, so I can't complain too badly I guess. Thanks for the clarification. I'd try putting the XML into an HTM page and submitting that to Google, but the CMS would chew it up and spit it out probably. It's like an overactive immune system that is allergic to anything it doesn't understand. SH (in reply to rdouglass)