Is A1 Sitemap Generator a Good Website Sitemap Tool?

Download A1 Sitemap

If you are looking for a good website sitemap tool that would help you get all pages of your website indexed effectively then it is best to invest in A1 sitemap generator. It is a very effective software tool for generating sitemaps. A1 sitemap generator can help in:

Getting all the pages of your website indexed (blogs as well as forums).
Letting the search engine find and display the changed content in your site.
Reducing the bandwidth load on your web server.

A1 sitemap Generator is considered to be an ideal tool for:

Crawling your website and finding all the pages in it.
Building a sitemap of your choice for your site.
Uploading the sitemap.
Submitting the XML sitemap to all the important search engines.

What can be achieved with the help of A1 Sitemap Generator?

With the help of this tool you can create following types of sitemaps:

XML Sitemap: a document that will help all leading search engines in understanding the structure of your website while crawling through it.
Google Mobile Sitemaps: that will contain only those URLs that provide mobile content.
Google News Sitemaps: that will help you to control the content that you may want to submit to Google News.
Google video sitemaps: to provide information regarding the videos on your site to Google.
Google code sitemaps: very useful for websites that feature source code files.
Google image sitemaps: to provide information regarding images on your site to Google.
Text Sitemap: all search engines including Google and Yahoo can scan text sitemap and you can use this tool to create one for your site.
HTML sitemap: to guide visitors around your website.

Besides the above mentioned features you can also use A1 sitemap generator to create ASP .net web sitemap, Google base feed, RSS sitemap feed and ROR sitemap feed.

Advantages of using A1 Sitemap Generator

A1 Sitemap generator is the most powerful sitemap generator tool that I have come across so far. It comes with a complete set of tools and features. Let’s take a look at some of the advantages:

The crawler of this tool can detect all pages in a website. It is an intelligent software that can handle all types of links and redirects.
You can create sitemap of any website – static, blog, forums etc. It also does not matter whether the site is on the internet, local host or local computer.
You can build and upload any kind of sitemap with his tool.
The sitemaps can be submitted to all leading search engines.
You can access fully functional A1 sitemap generator tool free of cost for 30 days. So, you get enough time to evaluate the tool.

Create HTML Sitemap with A1 Sitemap Generator

You can create a basic HTML sitemap with the help of this tool by using the default values. For that you must ensure that the ‘simplified easy mode’ is on.

Provide the URL of your site and click on ‘Start scan’ as shown below:

Sponser Ads

Once the scan is over you can go to ‘Analyze website’ to see all the pages that the crawler has found.

Now, go to ‘Create sitemap’ tab select ‘HTML template sitemap’ and click on ‘Build now’ button.

Congratulations!! Your HTML sitemap is ready !!

If you want to have more control over the process then you can work in ‘Advanced mode’ and for that you will have to switch off ‘Simplified easy mode’. Click here to learn more about what options you can use in advanced mode.

Create XML sitemap with A1 Sitemap Generator

For creating a XML sitemap you will have to first scan the website like you did in case of HTML sitemap. Once the scan is over you can go to ‘Analyze website’ tab and check the links. After that is done, go to ‘Create sitemap’ and select ‘XML sitemap: Sitemaps Protocol(Google Sitemaps)’ option as shown below:

Now click on ‘Build now’ button. Within no time your XML sitemap will be ready.

Create various types of sitemaps with A1 Sitemap Generator

Mobile sitemaps

Before going ahead with this discussion there are some things that you need to know. Firstly, a mobile sitemap is not relevant if your website is responsive and adaptive. i.e, it is able to detect the browser and displays content accordingly. In order to use this feature you must have a separate URL for mobile content. This is required for displaying content on mobile phones that are actually not smart phones. Such phones do not have efficient browsers that match the capabilities of a desktop browser.

You also need to keep in mind that if you have a created a separate website for smart phones then instead of a mobile sitemap it is better to create a normal XML sitemap as smart phones have browsers that are as good as desktop browsers.

To create a mobile sitemap, follow the steps mentioned below as also illustrated in the picture:

Provide the website domain address
Click on ‘Quick Presets’ button
Select ‘Google Mobile Sitemap’ option
Start Scan

Once the scan is over, go to ‘Create Sitemap’ option as shown below and select the ‘XML Sitemap: Google Mobile’ option. Click on ‘Build Now’.

A web crawler is not concerned whether your website is meant for mobile users or if it is having a .mobi domain or not. This tool can parse all kinds of formats that you may be using in your website. The ‘output’ and ‘analysis’ filter include all the file extensions used in common mobile website and the default settings generally work fine but still if you want to make any changes you can do so in advanced mode.

In order to make changes to these filters you must keep the ‘simplified easy mode’ off. By default, this mode is on and if that is the case then you may not see the filter options. Below I am providing a snapshot that will explain the filter options available to you in easy and advanced mode.

Options available when ‘Simplified easy mode’ is on

Options available when ‘Simplified easy mode’ is off

If you want to change the user Agent Id then you can do so by clicking on the general options

Video sitemaps

The process of creating video sitemap is also quite simple but in this case the crawler has to access more information. For this you will have to click on quick presets and select Google video sitemap option.

Note: choose ‘Google video sitemap (website has images hosted externally)’ option if you host images on external sub domains/domains.

Now, go to create sitemap option and select ’XML Sitemap: Google Video’

And no click on build now, that’s it.

Image sitemaps

So, by now I am sure you would have understood how things work. Image sitemap will also follow the same procedure.

Note: choose ‘Google image sitemap (website has images hosted externally)’ option if you host images on external subdomains/domains.

As per the default settings of A1 sitemap generator, it has to obey disallow instructions in robot.txt files. It is important to ensure that the image folder of your site is not excluded. For this you will have to switch off ‘Simplified easy mode’ and go to advanced mode.

If you are a techie person you may also want to check the detected ‘crawler state’ flags. These flags are related to webmaster filters Google code sitemaps. This information can be viewed under the ‘Analyze website’ tab as shown below:

While creating image sitemap you may want to list every image only once. For that you can go to Create sitemap > XML sitemap extensions > Google image sitemaps > Ensure each image is only listed once

Google news sitemap

Google news sitemaps can only have those URLs that have news to offer. The procedure of creating news sitemap is not very different but before you get started here are some things that you need to know:

A URL limit is applicable on Google news sitemaps and one cannot have more than 1000 URLs in one news sitemap file.
Google news sitemap will not consider pages which are more than two days old.
It is important to have correct news language and you must provide a publication name for Google XML Sitemaps.

In the advanced mode (i.e. Simplified mode switched off) go to Create sitemap > XML sitemap extensions

Provide the publisher and languages details on this screen

Select the right type of sitemap to build

Click on build now. If you want to create a sitemap for news every two days you can use the A1 sitemap generator to automate the process. Click here to learn more.

ASP.NET Web

The process in this case is also the same. You will have to scan your site first. Next, check the links under ‘Analyze website’ tab. You can then go to ‘Create sitemap’ tab and select ‘ASP .NET Web. Sitemap’ option.

Other Important Options Available in A1 Sitemap Generator:

Option of changing the sitemaps output and storage path in site builder: You can control the name and path of all generated sitemap files by simply clicking on the folder icon. These changes must be made before you click on ‘Build Now’ button.

Website can also be scanned at localhost and XML sitemap can be created. If you have scanned a website at http://localhost then you may want to set and override root path used in generated XML sitemaps. For this go to ‘URL options’ available in ‘Create sitemap’. Under ‘Set path root used in sitemap’ provide the required URL. So, if you scanned your site at http://localhost/yoursite.com, then you will set the path root as http://yoursite.com. Build the sitemap files again after changing this setting.

Sitemap builder can be used to remove URLS from XML sitemaps: A1 sitemap generator provides lot of filters. I have mentioned some of them in this article. Besides that you can use HTTP response codes to exclude URLs when building sitemap files. This feature is available in ‘Document options’ tab under ‘Create sitemap’.

Use Page titles in Sitemapper program: If you intend to change page titles in A1 sitemap generator then you can do so by providing the title in ‘Title’ text box in ‘Core data’ tab under ‘Analyze website’ section.

You can add, remove and edit URLs from the sitemap manually: For this select the right URL, go to ‘Table’ option and select your action.

Control ‘Priority’ and ‘importance value’ in sitemap generator: the importance value for a site is displayed under ‘Core data’ tab under ‘Analyze website’. This value is used to calculate priority. However, if you are not happy with this way of calculating priority then you can override the value of priority. Go to ‘Create sitemap’, under ‘XML sitemap options you can check the ‘override priority’ check box and provide the value of your choice.

However, if you are not happy with this way of calculating priority then you can override the value of priority. Go to ‘Create sitemap’, under ‘XML sitemap options you can check the ‘override priority’ check box and provide the value of your choice.

Control ‘Change Frequency’ value using xml sitemap generators: just below ‘override priority’ option in ‘XML sitemap options’ you have the option to change ‘Override ChangeFreq’ value.

Conclusion

A1 sitemap generator is a good tool with some great features such as:

XML and CSV data files can be exported in sitemap generator
No page limits
Standalone sitemap generator
Language and translation support

It is a great tool that can be used by both technical as well as non technical people. The best thing is that you can access fully functional version of this tool for free for thirty days, which is a lot of time. You can easily check if this tool is in line with your requirement or not.