Creating an XML or HTML sitemap is no longer a hassle. There are many sitemap generators and plugins that you can always use. However, unless properly formatted and submitted appropriately, you risk encountering a number of errors. This article explains some of the most common errors and how to solve them for successful submission of sitemaps to Google webmaster tools. Upon successfully fixing the errors, you should resubmit the sitemap.

Running a website today is not only a time-consuming affair, but also a complex one. You have to think about the latest strategies to beat the raging competition, churn out tons of content on a daily or weekly basis and implement a myriad of SEO strategies. Webmasters have a demanding job to do; ensuring that their content is indexed, realize higher search engines rankings, users find the required information, among others. It is for these, and many other reasons that website owners are encouraged to create sitemaps to directly notify Google about various changes the website undergoes and ensure that the new or modified content is crawled and indexed.

If you are still unconvinced on why you need to create and submit sitemaps to Google and other major search engines, you just need to realize that you are losing out on a great opportunity to maximize your site’s potential. Initially, most webmasters and website owners cited the complexity involved in creating sitemaps, but that shouldn’t be a reason anymore. Today, you can make good use of any of available assortment of sitemap makers to have your sitemap neatly generated, fast and reliably. Also, you don’t have to pay a penny submit your sitemap to Google, Yahoo, and Bing because it is free.

It is a common publishing practice to include a table of content to any book. Actually, a book that lacks a TOC is considered incomplete because readers are likely to get lost somewhere along the way. Furthermore, you will need to occasionally come back to the table of contents for direction on where exactly to find the information you are searching for. This is the same principle on which HTML sitemaps operate; they act as tables of content to your website enabling users to easily find the information fast and hassle-free.

Ever since its inception back in 2005, XML sitemaps have helped current search engines to effectively index and understand websites, and their content better. Unfortunately, some webmasters still overlook this crucial file, with some websites still running without it, not because the owners don’t know how to create a sitemap, but because they don’t understand the worth. Though initially created by Google, the search engines giant later abandoned its baby and joined hands with other companies to design the XML standard, replacing the Google XML standard. This new standards is supported by Yahoo, Google, Bing, and other search engines.