Do I need a link to Google sitemap ?

hiya everyone

This is my first 'proper' post, after my introduction posts .. you will soon see that i am a total novice .. probably trying to do something a novice has no right to do lol

I don't know anything about code, html etc .. and most of the posts in here go completely over my head .. so i have a million and one questions to ask. Don't worry tho, i'll only do a couple at a time

The first thing i need to ask is about google sitemaps.

I have set up an online adult store, and have used softplus gsitecrawler software to create a sitemap for me. I uploaded it a a few weeks ago. I read another post further down this forum about having to post the style sheet too, which i have just done .. and its prompting me to ask this question .. am i supposed to have a link on my website to that sitemap ? or so i just leave it as it is for google to read ?

my apologies in advance if it seems like a dumb question

Erica

 

You can have two types of sitemaps on your site.
1) You should have a texted-based site map that simply lists the pages on your site. You should link to this sitemap on every page.
2) The other type of sitemap is a Google Sitemap. This sitemap is in xml format, here is an example from Google's FAQ: http://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/docs/en/protocol.html#sitemapXMLExample . This sitemap you do not have to link to anywhere on your website. You only have to sign up for a Google Sitemaps account (https://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps) and from there you can submit your Google Sitemap.

Hope this helps
Derek

 

it certainly does Derek, thank you.
My xml google one is already up there and doing what it should be doing. A couple of days ago i saw a thread in here about the yahoo sitemap, and so submitted a text one to them, i'll duplicate it, take off all the image links and use that one as the linked one on my site.
Erica

 

OK .. i copied and pasted the text links from the yahoo sitemap onto a page i called sitemap.htm .. you said they need to be text links, do they need to be live clickable links or just a list of links straight from the txt doc ?
again sorry if this seems like a daft question lol
Erica xx

 

It is a good question, sorry I did not clarify. What I meant by text links was plain html links to each page:

<a href="webpage1.html">Webpage 1</a>
<a href="webpage2.html">Webpage 2</a>

Code (markup):

They need to be live clickable links so the search engines can follow them and then index all of your pages. It also should be an html page instead of a .txt page.

If you want an example you can look at my sitemap:
http://www.freeseoquiz.com/site-map.html

 

ahhhh right .. well at the moment all my pages have all the links on the left and right columns so basically if i copy and paste all of them into a list on their own page then that should be ok shouldnt it
thanks again Derek, and thank you for being so patient with me lol
Erica

 

No problem and good luck with your site!

 

thank you .. think i am gonna need it lolol
Erica

 

You might also want to use a Sitemap generator for HTML site maps.

I will of course suggest my own *G* (see signature), but there exist many alternatives. Most, to varying degrees, allowsyou to customize your HTML ouput.

 

hahaha i like your style.
i already use a sitemap generator for the google and yahoo sitemaps .. i'll go and have a nosy at yours now .. the one i use is basic enough for me to understand .. if yours beats that one then i will uninstall it and use yours lolololol
Erica xx