http://www.pearsonified.com/2006/12/use_an_xhtml_sitemap_for_better_indexing.phpUse an XHTML Sitemap for Better Indexing
As a Webmaster, one of the things you always need to be aware of is how well your the pages of your site are interlinked. This is a crucial factor in overall search engine performance, and simply assuming that your architecture is robust enough to handle this is definitely not the route you want to take.
Over time, you will likely accumulate tons of pages, and as this happens, the odds of certain pages getting buried to the point of becoming nearly inaccessible tend to go up.
To combat this, you can generate an XHTML sitemap that contains links to every page of your site.
Now, some of you may be thinking that your archives essentially solve this problem, but in a vast majority of cases, you’d be wrong
Typically, WordPress archive pages (and other CMS archive pages, for that matter) do not contain links to all of your internal Pages and available syndication feeds. On top of that, most archives also fail to link to every Post like I do on my archives page.
A properly-constructed XHTML sitemap solves this problem.
Why? Because Google Said So
In its Webmaster Guidelines, Google touts the merits of adding a sitemap to your site.
Make a site with a clear hierarchy and text links. Every page should be reachable from at least one static text link.
Offer a site map to your users with links that point to the important parts of your site.
I’d like to add that I’ve always looked at sitemaps as a helpful tool for the user. Some sites have confusing (read: poor) architectures, and oftentimes, it’s just easier to hit the sitemap and find what you need from there.
Bottom line — including a sitemap is easy, it’ll help your users, and it’s a great way to ensure that all the pages of your site are interlinked.
Download the XHTML Sitemap Generator Template for WordPress
Implementing an adequate sitemap is a simple task with WordPress, and to assist you with this, I’ve created a handy little XHTML sitemap generator.
No matter what theme or template you are using on your site, this XHTML sitemap will work (as long as you’re running WordPress). Best of all, you can easily activate your new sitemap by following these steps:
Upload sitemap.php to your active WordPress theme directory.
In your WordPress administration panel, go to Write and then to Write Page.
Fill in a title (it can be anything you want), do not enter anything into the text area of the post, and create a Post Slug called “sitemap.”
Most important, from the Page Template dropdown box, select the Sitemap template.
When you’re done, click on Create New Page.
The only catch is that the resulting page will be stripped of all styles, so there will be a bit of a visual disconnect between the sitemap and the rest of your site.
* XHTML sitemap?
