Just getting started...

8/08/2005 03:10:00 PM

Posted by Vanessa Fox

We are stoked that so many of you are trying out Sitemaps while it's in beta. When we read on the Sitemaps Google Group that you'd like an easy way to find out about new features and where we're headed with this thing, we realized we could put our very own Blogger to good use.

And since the Sitemaps team is far-flung in Mountain View, Kirkland, and Zurich, this will be a good way to keep everyone posted about new features and developments. Subscribe to our feed to keep up with the latest. We'll also e-mail each blog post to the Sitemaps Google Group, so if you get your news from there, you won't miss out on a thing.

In addition to telling you about new features here, we'll also do our best to address some of the frequently asked questions from the Google Group.

Lately, some of you have wondered if submitting a Sitemap could actually reduce the number of your site pages we have indexed.

No, submitting a Sitemap will not reduce the number of indexed pages for your site.

As we note in our information for Webmasters, each time we update our database of webpages, our index shifts: we find new sites, we lose some sites, and sites' rankings change. If your site was dropped from Google and you haven't made major changes to it, we'll likely pick it up again soon. If your site's ranking changes, ensure you are following our guidelines.

When you submit your Sitemap, you help us learn more about the contents of your site. Participation in this program will not affect your pages' rankings or cause your pages to be removed from our index.