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Frequently asked questions

If you've got a question about www.freesitemapgenerator.com, chances are you can find the answer on this page.

If not, use this form to contact us or log in to forum to post a question. You can also search this site.

Questions

1. Why should I create sitemap in the first place?
2. I created an account but never got the activation message! What to do?
3. Why should I create a fsgXXXXXXX.txt on my site?
4. How are priority and change frequency calculated?
5. I want to use the auto-upload package, is it safe?
6. I don't have PHP and still want to use the auto-upload package..
7. What does "Server Load" mean?
8. I have started a job, but want to cancel it. What should I do?
9. The auto-upload tool keeps complaining about file permissions, what are those?
10. Does your spider honor robots.txt files?
11. Do I need a Google Sitemaps API key to use this site?
12. Why do I have to manually start checking the number of indexed pages?
13. I've entered my site, hit the Make sitemap button, but all it does is put my homepage in the sitemap. What's wrong?
14. What does Auto Ping Google mean?
15. I use the Indexed Pages feature with my own Google API key and now I have 0 pages indexed!
16. Why am I on queue position 204 when I am a premium member?
17. How does your spider identify itself? What User-agent should I use in my robots.txt?
18. Nice tool you have, but it takes soooooooo long to create a sitemap!
19. What is this Priority label about?

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Answers

1. Why should I create sitemap in the first place?

Because it won't hurt you, and it will give you some nice benefits

2. I created an account but never got the activation message! What to do?

You can start by letting us send the activation message again. If that still doesn't work try using another e-mail address on a different domain. Some providers (aol.com) do not accept our automated messages.

3. Why should I create a fsgXXXXXXX.txt on my site?

Because generating a sitemap with our tools will generate traffic to your site (we spider your entire site), we want to make sure you own this site. We don't want ghost accounts that consume bandwidth without a valid reason.

4. How are priority and change frequency calculated?

We do not know the real priority or change frequency for a given page but we try to calculate it based on the links used on your site. You can turn these two options on or off by clicking on the Edit button in the Control Panel.

5. I want to use the auto-upload package, is it safe?

No, it is not. It is designed to write files to your server! And it uses PHP to do so. And the code is published on this site.... So there are a lot of things that could go wrong.
But we have tried to be as cautious as possible: there are two keys to identify a valid connection. That should scare hackers off. And besides that, the code only writes to files that are named sitemap*. But just to make sure: use at own risk!
But to give you some assurance: we use the upload package ourselves!

6. I don't have PHP and still want to use the auto-upload package..

You could try to rewrite the PHP to ASP or whatever language you like, but at this time only PHP is supported.

7. What does "Server Load" mean?

The Server load bar indicates how busy our servers are: more blue ==> busy. More blue means it will take longer for your sitemap to be generated.

8. I have started a job, but want to cancel it. What should I do?

Well, once a job is started it can't be stopped. But don't worry it will stop when it has reached 5,000 pages.

9. The auto-upload tool keeps complaining about file permissions, what are those?

Google it - it's all in the manual pages.

10. Does your spider honor robots.txt files?

Yes it does. You can read more at the official robots.txt site.

11. Do I need a Google Sitemaps API key to use this site?

No you don't. But for some features you do, like tracking the number of indexed pages for your site(s). You can get a free Google API key here.

12. Why do I have to manually start checking the number of indexed pages?

Because we have 100s of sites in our database and we don't want to keep sending queries to Google for users that aren't using this site anymore.

13. I've entered my site, hit the Make sitemap button, but all it does is put my homepage in the sitemap. What's wrong?

Most likely our spider could find any links on your homepage. If they are all created with JavaScript, or some other way, spiders have a hard time finding links. You could try to add a piece of navigation to your site where you put direct links to the most important sections of your site. Put this on your homepage, it will help spiders (not only ours) navigate your site better and faster.

Another common cause of this is your robots.txt file. Make sure it allows spiders to your site if you want it spidered. By clicking on the Errors button in the control panel you can see if any pages where blocked by robots.txt.

Another thing we have seen a couple of times: you enter the homepage url: http://freesitemapgenerator.com/ but when loaded it redirects to http://www.freesitemapgenerator.com. Those are two different sites, or at least it could be.

You can run a quick scan for your homepage by clicking the Test button. You can also do a quick scan here.

14. What does Auto Ping Google mean?

Once you have a new sitemap, or updated an existing one you can let Google™ know by sending a small request to them. We can do this automatically for you when we have auto uploaded a new sitemap to your website. If you manually upload a sitemap or use our Upload button you should notify Google™ you self. More information can be found at our links page.

15. I use the Indexed Pages feature with my own Google API key and now I have 0 pages indexed!

Don't panic! this happens. Remember that the Google API is still in beta. Sometimes it returns 0 as a result, sometimes it just doesn't give back any results (empty file). A lot of reasons for '0 indexed pages'. Just hit the Check Now! button again in a few hours, see what happens...

16. Why am I on queue position 204 when I am a premium member?

It can take a few minutes after upgrading your account before all our processes see the change. Be patient, check again 15 minutes later. If your account still hasn't been upgraded let us know so we can investigate

17. How does your spider identify itself? What User-agent should I use in my robots.txt?

Your can use User-agent: freesitemapgenerator, but because we try to generate Google™ sitemaps, we also look for the User-agent: Googlebot lines in your robots.txt. So you most likely don't have to add a special freesitemapgenerator section in your robots.txt.

18. Nice tool you have, but it takes soooooooo long to create a sitemap!

Not actually a question, but we get this e-mail a lot. Basically, what we do is we spider you entire site to see what pages are available. If you have a big site: it can take while to accomplish this. If you have a small site it will be done very soon. Just sit and wait. We will send you an automated e-mail as soon as your sitemap is ready.

To check how busy our servers are at any time, just go to the homepage and check the bar labeled server load. Completely white: nothing to do (hasn't happened since our launch) or completely blue: heavy usage, new jobs will be put in the queue to be executed when resources are free.

19. What is this Priority label about?

We have 3 priorities set up: Normal, High and Premium High. The higher the priority, the more resources are given to your job (i.e. they will finish faster). All sites will get Priority Normal, if you install the Live Data package and have sent back enough data your site will get priority 'High' and that will get your site 3 time more resources scheduled than 'Normal' jobs. Premium High is for Premium Members. Premium members' sites are given more resources and will not have to wait in the queue.

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