Workshop

The Workshop is designed to help you anticipate possible questions, review what you've learned, and begin learning how to put your knowledge into practice.

Quiz

1.	What XML encoding scheme is required of all Sitemap documents?
2.	What is the purpose of the priority ranking of a URL in a Sitemap?
3.	If I store a Sitemap file at the URL http://www.michaelmorrison.com/books/, can I include a URL in the sitemap for http://www.michaelmorrison.com/index.html?

Quiz Answers

1.	All Sitemap documents require UTF-8 character encoding.
2.	The priority ranking of a URL in a Sitemap is used to establish the relative importance of the page with respect to other pages on your web site; it has no bearing on your pages as compared to pages on other web sites. Changing all of your pages to a high priority will only have the effect of neutralizing the effectiveness of the priority ranking.
3.	No. A Sitemap cannot contain URLs that are higher in the folder hierarchy than where the Sitemap file is stored. In this example, all of the Sitemap URLs would need to start at http://www.michaelmorrison.com/books/.

Exercises

1.	Modify the Sitemap document example in this lesson to map the pages of your own web site. If your web site has a table of contents or an existing site map feature, you may be able to use it to help get a listing of URLs for the Sitemap document. Don't forget to post the Sitemap file to your web site and then submit the file to Google through your Google Sitemap account.
2.	If you have a fairly large web site or a site that uses dynamically generated pages (ASP, PHP, and so on), try using Google's own Sitemap Generator tool or a third-party Sitemap tool. Google maintains a list of such tools at http://code.google.com/sm_thirdparty.html.