Page 1 of 2 My last article, Are you Google-Friendly?, discusses the Webmaster Tools available from Google that help you to make sure that Google (and other search engines) have an easier time crawling and indexing your site. One item in particular deserves further discussion: the Google sitemap.
Please see Are you Google-Friendly? to learn more about the Webmaster Tools in Google Code.
To actually take advantage of these tools you have to have an account. It's free. Once you have an account you can use the webmaster tools on any website you have access to.
The Google sitemap provides a way for you, the site developer, to indicate exactly which pages should be indexed. The sitemap file is xml and must conform to one of the supported formats. (Please see the Are you Google-Friendly? article for the list of supported formats.)
ASP.NET developers have an easier time of it because of Bertrand Le Roy's clever use of an HTTP handler and the ASP.NET 2.0 concept of the default sitemap, the Web.sitemap.
Let's assume for a moment that your site already uses a Web.sitemap file to populate an asp:Menu or asp:TreeView control, which provides the site's main navigational links.
Please see ASP.NET v2.0 - Using the SiteMapDataSource and Menu Controls for more information about using the Web.sitemap file.
That means that you already have the required xml data. However, it's in the wrong format. ASP.NET's default sitemap format is not one of the support formats. This is where Bertrand's HTTP handler comes in handy. Just specify it (the handler) as the sitemap file. (See step 3 in the screenshot below.)
Figure 1 Adding a Google sitemap.
Keep in mind that you must be logged in to your Google account. From there you can access the Webmaster Tools (see Are you Google-Friendly? for additional details).
Keywords
Google, search, optimize, optimization, ranking, sitemap, http handler, GSitemap.ashx, webmaster tools, Bertrand Le Roy, Web.sitemap
