Google Sitemaps
We're always keen to learn about anything that will help us in the struggle to optimise your web site performance in search engine results. With this objective in mind, we've recently been supporting a new service from Google called Sitemaps. 

If you're an eDIY customer, a Google Sitemap is now automatically created for every content page and product in your web site and Sitemap statistics will soon be made available to you for keyword optimisation within the eDIY Site Control Panel, as well as web site referrer information and what search terms were used to find your web site.

Without getting too technical, a Sitemap is essentially a specially formatted file that's generated by our web server software and then made avable to Google, who periodically download the file.   The big advantage is that Sitemaps speed up the whole indexing process, either for new sites or for existing sites that have been modified.

And just in case you're wondering, this service is completely free and part of your subscription. This means there are no hidden costs to you when we implement Sitemaps on your behalf.

It's too early for Google to draw any conclusions about the Sitemap experiment, which is still only in its beta phase. They do seem confident, however, that Sitemaps will ensure improved crawl coverage and search results. The outcome of this improvement will be that more people will find their way onto your site because it is more aware of your complete web site content and can provide more relevant results.

If you want to read more about Google Sitemaps, here's a link to the Sitemaps login page:

http://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/login

From there, click on the links in the panel entitled "Learn more about Google Sitemaps" to open pop-ups that should answer most of your questions.

eDIY Software fully supports Google Sitemaps. If you want any help or advice about how Sitemaps are working for your eDIY web site, please contact us by e-mail or phone.