Yahoo!'s Version Of "Sitemaps": A Step by Step Guide

Posted by: Ray Torres Posted on: June 29, 2006

More Search Engines Articles

Google Optimization Tips: What You Need to Know to Get Your Site Ranked High...
One of the most popular search engines is Google with more than 200 million searches per day, as a result you want to make sure your site meets the guidelines used by Google regarding ranking. Everyone is searching Google, so you can't afford not to pay attention to what Google wants, and how to get your site ranked as high as possible.

Search Engine Optimization - Title Tag

Search Engine Optimization - Title Tag

Of all the html tags why do we give such importance to the tag? Why is the <title> tag so important to search engines? What criteria do search engines use when indexing web pages? Let's take a look at some of the answers. #1 With Your Search Engine Ranking Today The methods employed to increase your search engine rankings may seem like rocket science to you, so you have probably avoided dealing with this issue. I am here to tell you - the time has come to face your website! A high search engine ranking for your website is so essential that if you have the slightest desire to actually succeed in your business, there is no way you can continue to avoid this issue. SEO Tips For People Who Aren't Dummies! TIP ONE: THE IMPORTANCE OF KEY WORDS In the world of marketing online, one topic comes up over and over with great frequency: site rankings. It can sometimes seem to be the 'holy grail' in the highly competitive world of online marketing, where search engines rule supreme. The reality is that unless you have deep pockets indeed, SEO optimization in the long run will be more affordable than simply buying placement with click campaigns and advertisements. Enedia Web Marketing Case Study - Allied Pickfords The Company: Allied Pickfords are a leading International Moving Network operating removal and storage facilities throughout the length and breadth of Australia. In March 2003 Allied Pickfords rolled out their main branded website and scheduled development of a further three websites for their records management, Prime International and Trans International business arms. Non Reciprocal Links = Top Google Rankings When I left my day job four years ago I had four website's, today I have forty five sites and a while back I noticed that two of my sites have held their "Top Three" positions through all of the trends, fads, search engine updates, even the Florida update did not affect their top positions. To say the least I was perplexed, there was nothing really apparent that made these two sites different in fact I had did a terrible job of keeping them updated, you know too busy with the other site's greasing the squeaky wheels. Increase Landing Page Conversions Other than SEO, usability and conversion analytics is a topic close to my heart. When it comes to landing pages, users are vastly different to that of organic searchers. They want results and they want it fast, they are there for a purpose, so don't waste their time with loads of content. Give them the facts, make sure your Call To Actions (CTA) are clearly visible, take them exactly where they want to be without any hassles.

Yahoo! is now offering an easy way to submit all your Web pages to their search engine. It's a simplified version of Google Sitemaps, by means of a text file that contains a list of your site's URLs. In the past, you could only submit your home page to Yahoo!. With this new option you can submit all your site's pages in a single submission.

Like Google Sitemaps and other search engine submission process, this "sitemap" does NOT guarantee that Yahoo! will crawl or index your pages, nor will it influence your keywords' rankings.

The Yahoo! "sitemap" concept is the same as Google's, aside from a simpler format and lack of reporting in its current version.

Steps to submit your site's URL to Yahoo! "Sitemap" Step 1- Submit your home page to Yahoo! first. Before you do that, check to see if you are already indexed in Yahoo! or not.

Step 2 - Create the text sitemap file. A text sitemap is simply a list of the URLs of your site in the form of a text file with the following format:
http://URL1...
http://URL2...
http://URL3...

Yahoo! request that the file be named URLLIST.txt. You can generate the list with any text editor. As with Google Sitemaps, there are applications that can help you automate the sitemap file creation. I personally use SiteMapBuilber.Net; it is a free application that creates Google and text file sitemap. You can get more information on the application and download at www.sitemapbuilder.net.

Step3 - Submit Your Yahoo! Sitemaps URL To actually submit your sitemap to Yahoo!, you log into Yahoo!'s Free Submit page at

Yahoo! will ask you to provide your Yahoo! ID and password. If you do not have a Yahoo! ID created yet, you can sign up on the same page and double check that your home is listed on Yahoo! because if you don't have a Yahoo! account ,that would mean you have not submitted your home page to Yahoo! yet.

Once you log on into the submission page, just enter the URL where the urllist.txt is located in your site (ex. http://www.yourdomain.com/urllist.txt) and select the Submit Feed button.

If Yahoo! times out when submitting your Sitemap, allow 24 hours and then return and try again. Do not resubmit your Yahoo! file immediately after the timeout, if that happens to you. I have the experience of having timeouts when submitting some of my sites.

Yahoo! sitemaps is following Google's footsteps on creating an easier way to telling Yahoo! about all your site's URLs in a single submission, saving a lot of submitting and spidering time. There have been rumors that MSN is working on their own version of sitemaps. We'll be waiting.

About the Author

Ray Torres is the owner and webmaster of http://star-compass.com, a human-edited web site directory and http://ezine-articles-planet.com, a site dedicated to free article submission, content and resources for your blog, website or ezine.

Source: Search Engines Articles on ArticlesTree.com

Recent Search Engines Articles

Getting Started with Keyword Research
Detailed keyword research is an essential first step for any online business. Comprehensive keyword research reports are invaluable tools for conducting effective market research, analysis of the competition, managing a profitable paid internet advertising campaign and creating content for a website.

Search Engine Lifecycle of a Website (Part 2) - Off-site Optimisation.
So you have created your website and taken time to use key Search Engine Optimisation techniques. The next phases in this life cycle are concerned with the processes you use off-line to maximize the performance of your website.

How to Create Smart Incoming Linking
In order to get your site recognized by the main search engines and obtain a high page ranking, you need to be able to get your site noticed by engines like Yahoo and Google. While there are several more search engines out there, these are the big two that you want to get noticed, and ranked, by.

The Importance of Backlinks from Directories
Backlinks are a highly important and necessary part of any successful website. Backlinks are essential for Search Engine Optimization (SEO) because they help to judge the popularity and importance of the website based on their backlinks to other sites.

A Good Pay Per Click Management System
Pay per click can bring benefits to your business in no time at all. But before you begin to make use of pay per click techniques with the aim of boosting your website traffic and web presence, it is important to consider a few factors that are necessary in order to do a run a successful and profitable pay per click campaign.

Search Engine Marketing: Monitor Your Website Traffic
Search engine marketing is an essential requirement for any online business that is running a website for promotion and sales. Traffic generation is the prime concern for any search engine marketing strategy.

Acquiring Top Search Engine Rankings
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the most vital responsibility a site owner can perform to ensure success. Over 92% of all traffic to websites is from a search engine. Therefore, to guarantee traffic you have to do what is essential so that your primary keywords escalate to the very top of the search engines.

The Power of a Buzz Group
So what exactly is a buzz group as far as internet marketing goes? Well, it's a group of friends who want to help each other achieve greater success than one could achieve alone. In general it means that when you put up a website, you tell your friends to go visit it.

Expert SEO Strategy for Capturing Ephemeral Web Traffic
Here is an expert strategy straight out of the natural world for rapidly increasing traffic to your blog or website. We know that a great deal of traffic these days comes from search engines, based on keywords.

SEO and Web Syndication
SEO or Search Engine Optimization is done to make your website search friendly and is a set of methods that can greatly increase your web site’s visibility and traffic. What is web syndication? Well it is a form of syndication technique in which a section of your website is made available for other sites to use.

Web Analytics Technologies
What is web analytics? It is the study of any website visitor’s behavior. For any business website a detailed study of the traffic that gets into the website is very essential and can be of great commercial value.

SEO Tips for Newly Launched Websites
You came to the internet world by creating a website but how you will survive in global market or online marketing in UK? How internet users will find you from millions of websites across the globe? These questions arise in the mind of every new webie after creating a fresh website.

Tricks on Organic SEO
Search engines help to generate traffic to your website at the same time they also help promoting your website on the internet and build a web presence for it. There are two major ways in which a website can be optimized on the search engines.

Five Top Secrets of Pay Per Click Campaigns
Businesses that wish to be a part of internet marketing are now making use of the paid listing of the search engines that is popularly known as the pay per click campaigns. These search engine listings does not only provide a sufficient web presence to the businesses but they also help in generating essential traffic to the websites.

SEO vs. SEM : The ROI Myth Busted
Return on investment (ROI) is one of the deciding factors for any course of action involving investment of resources. For quite sometime now, a debate has been raging on whether search engine optimization (SEO) has better ROI than professional search engine marketing (SEM).