Hi, I'm new here, though I have read some of the threads before asking this question: I have been reading that it is a good idea to have a sitemap and update it daily. My site has more than 500 pages which I hope to be adding to. You can see it here http://articles-online.info Do I need to update the sitemap if I have not yet added new pages? Google sitemap (the free version) does 500 pages. Are there free ones that do unlimited pages? Do they work for all search engines including google? Google sitemap did 500 pages and I uploaded the xml file. Will I notice any difference with these pages compared to the pages on my site that have not been included in the sitemap? When I do a complete sitemap should I just upload it or delete the other one first? Your advice will be greatly appreciated.
More importantly than updating daily is updating whenever something changes. Daily updates give you no benefit and may lead to a "crying wolf" scenario. If you change your content 10X per day... update daily, I say. If you only change content 3-4X per month, then update it weekly or monthly. AutoMapIt.com is free up to 500 pages, but it is only $1 per update after that and you can set the update frequency whenever you want... or just manually set it for an update with or without the automatic updates. For bigger sites, it isn't free, but it's the next best thing.
Don't waste your time to update the sitemap everyday. Just update it once a week or when there are big changes in your site structure.
I update my one every week I use xml-sitmaps.com its only €10 very slow but it can pick up on 50,000 urls
As said above, update only when necessary. Do not update archives and other stuff which you wont change often.
I know you want a free one but if you consider ever buying one then this is a really good one to look at http://www.coffeecup.com/google-sitemapper/ If you have a good website it is worth putting a little money into it.
Thank for all the advice. I had a look at the link. It seems good. I might try it if I can't find a free one, but is it only for google or does it help other search engines too? Also if I use a sitemap that only does 500 pages when I have 100s, will it confuse the search engines or is it better than not doing it at all?
is there a difference in "quality" of sitemap between those free online generators and the one that is purchased? Or is a sitemap a sitemap
i have checked your site . i think you are making your site with html. i suggest you to choose a cms for site. for example , i'm using wordpress and it has sitemap plugin. it's easy to make sitemap easly