ROR XML Sitemap and What It Means for SEO
Although, SEO (search engine optimization) is a quite complex science, but the rule is simple: to set-up your website in such a way that search engine spiders and crawlers can instantly recognize and index its content. If these crawlers can’t “see” you, then you might not exist in the search results – and if they can’t read or understand your code, then no amount of keywords can get you in the Top 20.
As you probably know, sitemaps are essential for ensuring that your website can be completely indexed by the search engines spiders. Unfortunately, most of these sitemaps are specific to a single search engine. Therefore, there have been a lot of Yahoo and Google sitemap generators developed in recent years. On the other hand, there is an alternative that is even better. These are ROR sitemaps. ROR sitemaps are readable by all search engines, not just by Yahoo or Google.
ROR (short for Resources for a Resource), is an independent XML format that interprets your website’s content in such a way that all search engines can easily understand. You can think of it as a Cliff’s Notes of the web spider, which describes all the services, objects, images, discounts, podcasts, etc. If it’s on the website, it’s on the ROR feed, however in a format that’s quite easy to process and eliminates all risks of ignoring or skipping a link. With a ROR sitemap, search engines such as Google and Yahoo, can better understand your services, products, images, podcasts, articles, newsletters, and anything else that you want to describe.
For instance, if you are selling specific products, a ROR file allows you to document your product names, prices, descriptions, images, affiliate programs, availability, and any other relevant information. Search engine crawlers such as the Googlebot have an ample job to do. By using ROR XML sitemap, you are helping them better understand your content.
ROR feeds guide search engines as they scan the text. As compared to Google Sitemaps, it’s very easy to process as it is universally understood. Furthermore, it’s also more detailed and doesn’t simply give ‘table of contents’ or a map, it actually summarizes what’s inside.
Although ROR XML Sitemaps have been around for a long time, they are by no means outdated. Most of the file formats are already available in ROR, however it is now being updated to keep up with the increasing number of site innovations. The ROR system tries to re-use existing data structures in order to avoid being too unwieldy. It boasts of being very efficient, a strength that makes it one of the most effective ways of indexing a website.
In this video it is explained and showed how to properly use a ROR sitemap in your site.
Generally, the ROR feed is found in the directory, and by default it is named as ‘ror.xml.’ You can rename the file without any problem as the search engines will still find it. However, it needs to have a tag in your main page. Alternatively, you can create a smaller ror.xml file to direct the search engines to ROR feed. There are a lot of ROR sitemap generators available these days, you can benefit from them as well. If you need any SEO Services we are here to help, if you want SEO info just keep checking in with our blog
