Suggestions for Google Sitemaps
September 14th, 2007 by Michael Gray in GoogleIf you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Read my top posts or learn more about Michael Gray. Want more frequent updates follow me on Twitter. Thanks for visiting!
Hey Google sitemaps how about we clean up this menu to make it a little easier to understand
How about “pages with external links” and “pages with internal links”. You know this way the phrase is similar with just the condition changing. I can figure it out, but it eliminates one of those “don’t make me think” moments.
Also how about cleaning up the feed URL’s
http://www.wolf-howl.com/feed and http://www.wolf-howl.com/feed/ are really the same. Also the overall stats are waaaaaaay off, see New Feed Subscriber Stats & User Interface For Google Webmaster Central for a much more in depth explanation.
Sphere It
September 14th, 2007 at 12:15 pm
I noticed the menu last night. It didn’t take long to figure out which link I wanted, but I did immediately think of Steve Krug.
September 14th, 2007 at 2:53 pm
The /feed and /feed/ are different URLs/files in the same way that example.com and http://www.example.com are different URLs.
A slash in *nix means “directory”. /feed will load a file called “feed” (files do not need file extensions, but it’s still a file). /feed/ will load the index file in the root of the feed/ directory — it could be index.php, index.html, index.py, home.asp, or whatever index file the server is configured to display.
September 14th, 2007 at 3:11 pm
I’ve throw my hands up with Google Analytics. There is such a lag between getting your stats. Especially, if you are trying to monitor traffic during a visit to the front page of a social site. I’ve been using Clicky Web Analytics for about a month and you can’t beat the real-times stats and they have a “Spy” feature so you can see the visitors come in.
September 21st, 2007 at 6:58 pm
@Jason - Have you been holding your breath for Gatineau? I’m stoked, but we’ll see how things go.
As for the updated Webmaster Central, I’ve had a few friction moments. Like the Digg update, I think it just takes some time getting used to new navigation, but if that moment of friction exists, can they do anything to reduce it right off the bat?
September 21st, 2007 at 9:52 pm
Another instance of Google’s interface just being bad was Google Analytics 1.0. The interface was made so imperfectly and the stats were always screwed up. The stats are usually screwed up these days too but I hate bad usability Google products. How about Google Base? I find Google base completely unusable at times and in certain areas.
Another thing is Craigslist, Craigslist just pisses me off regardless of the needs for nostalgia
December 3rd, 2007 at 11:38 am
Google is like a really great stereo system. Amazing if you use it right, but the instructions are usually in German.
Contrary to popular opinion, Google doesn’t excel at UI. I’m OK with it because the benefit out weighs the energy it takes to understand the interface they are asking me to use. Sure, I’ll take improvement, but in the meantime, it actually work (unlike certain Yahoo features).
Speaking of sitemaps, your readers may enjoy this article on the basics of creating sitemap.xml files: http://blog.shofr.com/2007/development/seo-101-sitemaps/