Now more publishers can use Sitemaps

What keywords are people using to find your site in the Google search index? Is your robots.txt file blocking search engines from crawling your site? Whatever questions you have about your site's visibility, Google Sitemaps provides you with information that can help--and Sitemaps recently launched several new features you should know about:

New verification method
In the past, you needed access to your site's root directory to verify site ownership and create a Sitemap. This meant you couldn't create Sitemaps for many hosted sites, including Blogger.com sites like Inside AdSense. However, now more publishers can use Sitemaps. Sitemaps has launched a feature that allows publishers to use meta tags to verify site ownership. For example, if your site is hosted on Blogger.com, all you have to do is add a unique meta tag to your site's header to verify your Sitemaps account.

Re-inclusion request form
If your site violated Google's quality guidelines and was subsequently penalized--i.e., dropped from the Google search index--now you can submit a re-inclusion request using your Sitemaps account. Simply sign in, click the link, and fill out the form. This form is also available from the Summary page for sites that show violations.

For information about these and other newly launched Sitemaps features, visit the Inside Google Sitemaps blog.

Posted by Shaluinn Fullove - Google Sitemaps Product Marketing