The sitemap is merely a file that lists URLs, and simple information about the pages in XML. No new development of the Web site itself is necessary, nor is the development of a site map an onerous task. In the development of one federal Web site (http://www.plainlanguage.gov), it took only eight hours for the site's web manager to fully implement the Sitemap protocol.
The sitemap can communicate information about the location, importance, frequency of change, and last modification of a page. Using a sitemap, a search engine can optimize its indexing of any site in order to more effectively aggregate the content on the site; thus, the site can be accurately represented in search engine results.
Tools have been developed to ensure that the creation of a sitemap is relatively simple. Google and Yahoo both offer specific tools to help manage a Web site, and there are also open source scripts to help Webmasters create sitemaps.
For more information about the technical implementation of the Sitemap protocol, please see http://www.sitemaps.org/protocol.php.
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