Earn A Living Online » search engine

Manually Creating Sitemap Files

Keith James Lock — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 17:38:02 +0000

I have some static sites where I choose to manually create sitemap files. Here's how I do it...

First, I create a text file (I use TextPad but pretty much any basic text editor should do the trick).. and I save the file as "sitemap.xml". In sitemap.xml I have lines of code such as:

xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9


http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9/sitemap.xsd">


  http://domain.com/

  monthly





  http://domain.com/category1/article1/

  monthly





  http://domain.com/category1/article2/

  monthly

Just keep adding 'url' blocks like shown above for each and every page on the site.

Next I compress the file into a file called "sitemap.xml.gz". I use this 7-zip tool to create the gz file. After installing 7-zip it created an option in my context menu (right-click menu) on my Windows Vista machine. So, I right-click the original "sitemap.xml" file, click "7-zip", then click "Add to archive...".

Then I choose "GZip" as the "Archive format" and make sure "Add and replace files" is selected under "Update mode:" which I believe it is by default. Then I click "OK" and it will create (or overwrite) the gz file.

Now.. it doesn't hurt to create a "urllist.txt" file as well, which is simply the list of URLs on your site, kinda like this (but without the extra line break):

http://domain.com/

http://domain.com/category1/article1/

http://domain.com/category1/article2/

...and so on

Now.. upload the files to the root of your site. You can now submit the xml sitemap to Google Webmaster Tools if you want. You can then wait for the other engines to pick up whichever file they need... or better yet, use Traffic-Bug to tell all 130+ search engines right now where your site is and they will look at the appropriate sitemap file for indexing.

Not All Backlinks Are Created Equal

Keith James Lock — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 20:10:49 +0000

Below I'm going to go through some of the different types of backlinks that you can get to your web sites. Just know, I'm not an authority on backlinking, I have never taken the time to test new backlink strategies and measure results, and I'm not an innovator in this area. I will only be discussing what I have learned from other people. Granted, I have used these methods and have seen good results. But for the most part, I just "trust" that this stuff is valid. I understand Google's goal as a search engine, and the information I have acquired about backlinking makes sense and is in align with my understanding of search engines for the most part. So, with that said, this isn't "cutting edge" material, it is tried and tested methods and descriptions that have been passed around the SEO circles for years.

Truly, the best method of getting backlinks that is 100% inline with what search engines want is to write good content and let people link to it on their own. But as we know, there are ways to assist in the process...

Backlinks From Different IP Addresses

It is generally accepted that backlinks to your websites from sites that are hosted on different servers other than your own, have more value. So, don't buy a shared hosting account that allows unlimited web sites and create a network of sites all linking back to your money site. It is easily detectable and not that valuable.

There are numerous ways to get backlinks from different IP addresses. These include (but are not limited to): Social Bookmarking, RSS Submission, Blog Commenting, Directory Submission, Video Sharing, General Article Marketing, Blog Content Syndication, Web 2.0 Property Building (Squidoo, Weebly, etc.), Press Releases, Guest Blogging, etc. etc.

Anchor Text Used In Backlink

The word(s) used that link to your site, the anchor text, is deemed as important. Change it up a bit and use related keywords as well. Just don't use "click here" all the time, be creative, or focus on specific keywords that you want to rank for.

Slow, Natural Link Building

Sure, it is often said that links should be built gradually and not just stop suddenly, that the same steady pace should, for the most part, continue, in order to be "natural". I really don't know about this one myself. What if you wrote something really newsworthy one day and it hit CNN and then suddenly 1000's of backlinks are being built inside of a week and maybe you even make it to Google Trends. Then, what if it suddenly dies down because it's old news? That defies the whole theory that slow and steady is the way to go. In fact the news blast seems more natural to me. So, I don't worry about this a whole lot myself, but it seems that the general consensus is to keep it slow and steady.

Education And Government Backlinks

Backlinks coming from web sites that have a .edu or .gov TLD are said to have more value. Makes sense.

Mixed PR Backlinks

Backlinks coming from sites that have a Google Page Rank of 10 are more valuable than a PR0 of course. Again, makes sense. Getting only backlinks from high PR's may not be the way to go though. It's probably good to get backlinks from a range of PR's, wouldn't you say? It would just be to obviously fabricated otherwise. I could be wrong of course, because getting backlinks from just PR8's only for example can occur naturally, it's just not likely in my opinion.

Deep Linking

Getting links just to your homepage isn't always best. Some of your best money making content may be at lower levels of your site. Also, you may want to rank some deeper pages for keywords on their own. I also read that if you say, add a page of content to Squidoo, and create more than 1 backlink to your homepage within that 1 page, the first backlink will be the one that is taken into account. The links further down the page won't pass any juice or anchor text.

Contextual Links

If you have a backlink created in the middle of a paragraph or article that is related to the content on your site, it is much more valuable than say, getting a backlink in the sidebar or footer that is part of a list or cluster of links.

DoFollow Links

A search engine may not give value to a backlink if it has a nofollow tag attached to it. A nofollow tag is essentially telling the search engine (particularly Google) that the backlink does not count as a vote for the linked site. The site the backlink is on is not vouching for your site so the search engine may ignore the anchor text, PR, etc.

What Are The Best Backlinks To Get?

Based on the info above it would seem you want backlinks with the following characteristics:

from a range of IP addresses
containing your choice of, and a variety of, anchor text
perhaps created slowly
from .edu and .gov sites on occasion if you can
from mixed PR, high PR if you can
to different pages of your site, not just the homepage
within a paragraph of related content (contextual, rather than clustered)
dofollow if possible

Now, if you can get backlinks like described in the list above you are on the right track. Of the backlinking procedures that I follow for my niche sites, there is one method that covers all of the backlink characteristics (except maybe getting links from education and government sites), and that's from blog content syndication. <- That's a link to a post I wrote on it a few days back.

With blog content syndication you can essentially get 100's of backlinks with the above criteria created slowly over time with just a couple hours work or less up front. Outsource it and it's just 10 or 15 minutes of your time. Some of my thriving sites, like the one described here where I have made almost $400 a month for the past few months, this is the only method of backlink building I put effort into. And for that particular site discussed, I only did 2 submissions.

A 3rd party company, Article Marketing Automation, offers a network of sites with different IP addresses to automatically post content on. The tools make certain the content is unique and lets you create backlinks with a variety of anchor text, even with just 1 submission. You are allowed as many submissions, for as many sites as you want. Last I checked, if you sign up for Article Marketing Automation's free blog content service they are letting you try the blog content syndication service out for free.

Advanced Domain Name Basics

Keith James Lock — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 18:23:36 +0000

When creating a niche blog based around a certain keyword, there are a few things that are handy to keep in mind when buying the domain name.

Keywords In The Domain

Of course we know it is advantageous to purchase a domain name with our keyword in it. You can get one with or without hyphens. In other words: yourkeyword.com or your-keyword.com.

Country Specific TLD

When setting out to a create a niche blog for a certain keyword you should take a step or two back. What country are you targeting? And before you say... "all of them", you should consider getting a bit more niche specific than that for better results. When doing your keyword research to find high trafficked keywords with low strength of competition, preferably using Market Samurai, you can look at country specific results.

Because people search for things in search engines differently, you will see different results for "number of searches" and "competition" when looking at the results for a particular country. Now if you buy a domain name with that particular country's TLD, and host the site on a server that resides in that country (more on that later), then you will be several steps ahead of your SEO competitors right out of the gate.

By the way, TLD stands for top level domain and is the part after the "dot" in the domain name (or maybe it even includes the dot, I'm not sure). (com, ca, edu, for example)

Check out this list of country specific TLD's from Wikipedia.

2 Years Minimum

Also, the testing has been done, and the search engines will take your site more seriously, and rank you higher than competitors as a result, if you pay for 2+ years when buying your domain name. Don't just get it for 1 year. Invest in your business and get it for 2 or more.

Extra SEO Tips

In an effort to rank higher for your chosen country-specific keyword in the country-specific search engine, it is beneficial to host the site on a server that is located in the country that you are targeting. Sometimes it's tricky to find because just because the homepage of a hosting provider is in Australia for example, it does not mean that the servers are there. I will be putting together a list shortly with servers and hosting providers around the world and will include it in a future post.

Additionally, entering a street address from the country that you are targeting onto your site will help you rank higher. I think it helps when on the About, Contact and Privacy Policy (and maybe Terms & Conditions) pages. I generally just include it in the footer (which is especially simple on a WordPress blog by adding it to the footer theme file) so it appears on all pages.

Buying Domain Names

GoDaddy still continues to provide great prices for domain names. They add new TLD's to their offerings all of the time. I buy domains from several domain registrars for a specific strategy that I employ, but for the most part GoDaddy is my choice for domains.

As a bonus, domains purchased at GoDaddy will get propagated quicker, meaning your site will be viewable around the world quicker, but it does depend on the TLD. For example, a .com purchased at GoDaddy could have a site "live" for the world to see in literally minutes. I know because I've done it. Try these coupons for some discounts. (cjctld749 for .org AND MTECH330 for .com) Using these coupons will negate my referral commission unfortunately so you don't really have to use them! haha Oh, and if you are purchasing more than one domain with different TLD's and using coupons, do the transactions separately because you can only add 1 coupon at a time.