XML Sitemap: notify search engines of site updates

XML Sitemap (formerly Google Sitemap) automatically creates a site map that conforms to the sitemaps.org specification. This helps search engines keep their search results up to date.

XML Sitemap includes optional modules which allow the site administrator to customize the site map output and submit the site map to search engines automatically.

Before you install or upgrade

• Always backup your site and database.
• When you are upgrading the XML Sitemap module to a new version, be sure to delete the old module files before copying the new ones to your sites/all/modules folder. This recommendation is valid also when upgrading major Drupal versions (Drupal 5.x to Drupal 6.x). The new version of XML Sitemap can adopt a different directory structure, and you could inadvertently have duplicates of module files if you do not follow the above instructions.
• Be sure to always execute the update of Drupal through update.php; if update.php is not executed, the database tables are not being updated, and this will cause SQL query errors provoked by the difference between the fields name used by the code, and the name of the fields really present in the database.
• After using update.php, visit /admin/reports/status, and verify there aren't warning (or error) messages given by XML Sitemap; if there are any messages, follow what they suggest you to do.

Development roadmap

• The 6.x-1.x and 5.x-2.x branches are only accepting bug reports so that they can reach a stable official version. Both branches are no longer accepting feature requests.
• The 6.x-2.x branch is undergoing a complete rewrite that will address these the performance and scalability issues. The 6.x-2.x-dev version is for testing and benchmarking purposes only. Upgrading from any other version to 6.x-2.x-dev is NOT currently supported. To use this version you MUST disable and uninstall any current XML Sitemap modules.
• Once the 6.x-2.x branch is tested and upgradeable, the the 6.x-1.x branch will no longer be supported. Those wishing to help with the re-write should read #448000: Big, Over-Arching Sitemap Architecture Discussion (tm) or Dave Reid's blog post on State of XML sitemap 2009.