In an effort to get our data files cached/trawled by Google and other search engines we need to have a sitemap.xml file that tells the "bots" where to go.

Secoora generates geo referenced data files such as kml and georss, and after reading here we need a sitemap just for our geo data. Further sitemap information can be found here. The idea behind using the sitemap file for our data files is to get our kmz and georss feeds showing up in Google map and Earth searches when the view bounding box is in the Secoora region.

A sitemap index file has the following format:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<sitemapindex xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9">
   <sitemap>
      <loc></loc>
      <lastmod></lastmod>
   </sitemap>
</sitemapindex>

The sitemap file can also contain some Google centric tags that specify if the link provided is a geo referenced data set. Here is an example of a kmz and georss feed in a sitemap file:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9"
 xmlns:geo="http://www.google.com/geo/schemas/sitemap/1.0">
   <url>
      <loc>http://secoora.org/scgeorss/</loc>
      <geo:geo>
        <geo:format>georss</geo:format>
      </geo:geo>
      <changefreq>hourly</changefreq>
      <lastmod>2010-02-15T17:00:00</lastmod>
   </url>   
   <url>
      <loc>http://secoora.org/sclatest/all_obs/</loc>
      <geo:geo>
        <geo:format>kmz</geo:format>
      </geo:geo>
      <changefreq>hourly</changefreq>
      <lastmod>2010-02-15T17:00:00</lastmod>
   </url>
</urlset>