New Sitemap Generator Tool from Google
Google announced the release of their own open source XML sitemap generator tool. There are several third-party sitemap tools around that do a great job, but Google decided that they could add some value with their own tool.
As they describe it:
Unlike many other third party Sitemap generation tools, Google Sitemap Generator takes a different approach: it will monitor your web server traffic, and detect updates to your website automatically.
Sounds like an interesting, different approach to sitemap creation. I haven’t tried it out yet, but I will try it and report back on the results.
If anyone else has tried it out, post in the comments and let me know what you think about it.
Get the code for Google’s XML Sitemap Generator
Tags: Google, sitemap generator, sitemaps, xml sitemap
One thing that Google didn’t make perfectly clear in its Google Blog announcement was that you need server-level administrative access in order to install and use this tool. (Instead, they say it’s a “server plug-in”, which can be confusing to a lot of people.)
For those who just looked at what I said and went “Huh? He just said what?” I’ll repeat it again. You either have to be a server administrator or know one in order to install this. If you don’t have that kind of access to the server, you’ll be better off using another sitemap generator program (or writing them out by hand).
ah… so it is impossible to use it if I have no FTP account in my blog.
You would need root access to the server, so FTP would not be enough. You’d have to be a server administrator to use this. But it would handle all the sites on the server, so separate scripts would become unnecessary.
It seems a valuable tool for forums, social networking sites and large hosts, it generates sitemaps out of the server traffic log and pings ‘em around, and you can change settings per site on the host. Yet to owners of hosted sites it has no practical use, maybe once cPanel and DirectAdmin integrate it we’ll hear about it.