The Google site map generator runs on Python.  I see people asking about it, but I don't see where it is from cpanel.

Anyway, my ultimate question is:  Okay, say I generate a valid site map from the Google generator.  I modify the settings  as needed (I'm okay in XML).

Do I just put it in my root directory?  Or are there any settings I need to add/modify?

TIA.   It's always these simple problems that cause me the most grief.

Interesting. The documentation shows a very simple format:

<?xml...
<urlset...
  <url>
    <loc>http://www...
    <lastmod>2007-0...
    <changefreq>monthly...
    <priority>0.8...
  </url>
  <url for next page...
</urlset>

Is it really that simple? If it is, what I'll do is write a little utility to read a list of pages I want in the sitemap and spit out both my Sitemap.php page and the Google sitemap. Have cron kick it off early each morning, and I'm in business!

Several questions for Mitch:

What is the name of the file? Is it sitemap.gz or sitemap.xml.gz? They show both. Make up your minds, guys! I'm assuming that gzip is available -- I can't sign on to cPanel right now to check.

The instructions say, "After you produce your Sitemap, you will need to notify search engines of the Sitemap's location." Huh? I have to do manual submissions? They aren't going to look for public_html/sitemap.whatever.gz on the next crawl? That bites.

Is there a validation site, something like the W3C's page validators? Google gives instructions on some convoluted set of XML/XSL/Xwhatever tools and schemas to download and run in some manner. Come on! I just want to feed my sitemap file to something that will tell me if it's properly formed -- bonus points if it can compare it against my site and point out discrepancies.

I will be adding an e-store. Is it good practice to put individual items in the sitemap? Usually this involves a URL query string with item numbers, etc. From the FAQ, it sounded like that must be what people do (put individual item pages in the sitemap). How else would you approach the 50,000 page limit for a sitemap? I'll have to look into monkeying with my utility to read my product database, rather than manually updating the page list.

What do I gain (or lose) by providing this sitemap, over just letting Google et al. crawl my site?

I've never bothered creating one by hand.    Might do a search on Google to find a good generator to do it for you.  Since I use WordPress on all of my Web sites, I use this plugin here.

I don't know about a validation - but I do know if it is wrong, after Google checks it - they will let you know.  You'll get a little "error" message under the Google Sitemap Web site and it will tell you what the issue might be.

I don't want to use a canned generator. I want to have close control over which pages get included, and I want to use the same page list to make my site's PHP sitemap page. If there's a canned generator to do all this, great, but if there isn't, I'm prepared to hack out something. The XML format looks simple enough -- I just want to know what exactly to name the thing, if it should be gzipped, how it can be validated, and whether it's enough just to plop it into public_html/ (or do I need to explicitly inform the Search Engines).