Partner with Google Mobile

Google has created many partnership programs discussed in this book, and Google Mobile is no exception. The number of people accessing the Internet using their mobile phones and other devices is growing rapidly. More than ever, your site must be accessible to mobile users, and helping people find your mobile Web site is one of Google’s goals. You can partner with Google by adding Mobile Web Search to your site and making sure that Google indexes your mobile Web page.

Adding Google Mobile Web Search

You can add Google Search to your mobile Web site by signing up for Google Mobile and using the free copy-and-paste search service. Visit www.google.com/mobile/partner.html, and click Sign up for Google Mobile. Fill in the registration form, telling Google about your Web site. When you finish, click Submit.

Tip 

You can sign up for Google Mobile several times if you have more than one site.

Your mobile Web site must be compatible with one of the following mobile technologies:

• XHTML

• WML

• iMode

• PDA devices (standard HTML formatted for smaller displays)

Indexing your mobile Web page

A mobile Web page is one that has been formatted using one of the wireless technologies discussed throughout this chapter. At the very least, if you use HTML, it should be formatted for small displays. Create an account with Google Sitemaps to add your mobile Web page.

Creating a mobile site map

A site map is an XML page that lists information about your Web site. There are many reasons to create a site map. One reason may be that your site does not have pages that are easily found by Google’s Web crawler. A site map helps the crawler better index your site. The same is true for mobile Web pages.

The easiest way to create a mobile site map in the Sitemap protocol is to use the Sitemap generator script. This is an open source script downloadable from SOURCEFORGE.net. The URL is rather lengthy. You can type this or point your browser to www.sourceforge.net and search on google-sitemap_gen. Here is the URL: http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=137793&package_id=153422.

Your Web site must be running Python 2.2 or higher to use the Sitemap generator script. Webmasters must know how to transfer files to their site and run scripts.

You also can manually create a site map using the Sitemap XML protocol. You should be familiar with creating well-formed XML pages. See full instructions for creating a site map here: https://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/docs/en/protocol.html.

Please note that this site requires you to log in first.

Adding your site map

Point your Web browser to www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps. Add your mobile Web site to the list of sites that you manage. Your site then appears in a list of managed sites. In the Sitemaps list column, click the Add a Sitemap link. This launches the Add Sitemap page where you should choose a type from the drop-down list. There are only two selections. The first one is for adding a sitemap that describes a regular Web page. Choose the second option, Add Mobile Sitemap from the list. New form selections appear based on which selection you choose. After you create a site map using one of the techniques described in the preceding section, upload it to your Web site. Type the URL of the site map in “Step 3. My Sitemap URL is.”

Finally, select the markup language used by your mobile Web site from the drop-down list, and click Add Mobile Sitemap.

Finding out what’s new

Stay on top of what’s new in Google Mobile technology by signing up for notifications of new Google products. Point your Web browser or mobile or desktop computer to www.google.com/mobile/submit_email.html, type your e-mail address, and click Submit.

You also can stay up to date by reading Google’s official blog at googleblog.blogspot.com.