Is Your Website Ranking All That It Could Be?

byRobert-A

10.9K followers

Updated 8 years ago

SEO Spiders - ROR

I published a similar blog to this one last year but as I have had a couple of questions asked of me this week about what are, and how do I, regarding sitemaps I thought I would reiterate what was said in that other blog. There is a WA training on this but as with all things internet there are always changes going on and sitemaps are no exception.

Below is my description of a sitemaps functions. Although I do use the google xml one I like to try out other formats as there are not really any set-in-stone hard and fast rules what you should use. It’s a personal choice folks so feel free to totally ignore my blog on the subject.

Site design improvement is an extremely complex science, however at its heart there is one exceptionally straightforward general guideline.

You need to arrange your site in a manner that internet search engine spiders can perceive and record the content when they crawl your website. If for some reason they can't, you do not exist, and on the off chance that they can't comprehend your code, no ammount of catchphrases or fantastic keywords will get you on the principal page of Google or any other web crawler postings.

So how should you optimize your site so that it performs well in all search engines?

This is where Resources For Resource comes in, an independent XML format that translates your content in such a way that all search engines can understand.

Think of it as a spider's writing pad because it describes all the objects, services, discounts, images etc etc.

If it's on the site, it's on the ROR feed, but in a format that's easy to process and it will remove any risk there might be that it will skip or ignore links.

ROR basically consists of structured feeds, which guide search engines as they scan the text. Unlike Google Sitemaps, it's universally understood, and very easy to process. It's also more detailed. It doesn't just give a map or "table of contents", it actually summarizes what's inside. It's also been in existence a lot longer than Google and has a proven track record.

Though it's been around for a long time, ROR is by no means outdated. The majority of the file formats are already available in ROR, although it is currently being updated to keep up with the growing number of website innovations. But to avoid being too unwieldy, the ROR system tries to re-use existing data structures and its strength makes it one of the more efficient ways of indexing a site.

Usually the ROR feed is located in the directory, and is named by default ror.xml. It is possible to rename the file, and the search engines will still find it. The only thing it needs to have is a tag in your main page (between the title and tags). Another alternative is to create a smaller ror.xml file which will direct the search engines to the ROR feed. You can create this file in the ROR sitemap generator.

There you go folks.If you would like to use a different sitemap to the one you’re currently using then why not have a looksee here - sitemap generator - Try it out for a week or so and see if it has made any difference to your ranking, and if not then go back to your old one.

Have a great weekend and leave a comment below if you have the time.

Robert Allan

Here is a link to a page where it shows comparisons between Sitemaps.

http://www.microsystools.com/products/sitemap-gene...