Site Maps - Necessary or not?

[hart084]

hi again

it's me on the scrounge again. Is a site map necessary for my website on google, it's just that my site map page is coming up with an error when I try to get it uploaded onto google. www.thewaterbuttshop.co.uk/site_map.htm

The error is as follows:

Unsupported file format
Your Sitemap does not appear to be in a supported format. Please ensure it meets our Sitemap guidelines and resubmit. [?]

cheers again

harty

[karinne]

What do you mean by "when I try to get it uploaded onto google"!?!? I'm confused?!?!

[hart084]

When your in Google webmaster tools, you can submit your site map to google, this supposedly improves your ranking and how far up you are indexed. Hope this explains a bit?

[Ryan Fait]

I really don't think it makes much difference, but I do it anyway. You probably have an error in your XML if it's not submitting properly.

[ukgeoff]

If the site map you are trying to make available to Google is the one you provided the link too, then you are on the wrong tack.

Google requires its site maps to be in a specific XML format and not html.

There are free tools available that will crawl your site and construct a Google site map for you.

Have a look at this http://gsitecrawler.com/

[hart084]

Many thanks Geoff, that worked a treat.

Cheers

Harty