Can a Google XML Sitemap double as human-readable?

[HelenDev]

I'm just getting started creating sitemaps for some websites and was thinking wouldn't it be good to kill two birds with one stone and create something which was human readable and would suffice as a sitemap for Google too.

Has anyone done this? I have done some reading on the help pages but I'm not sure that Google sitemaps have hierarchy built in, or do you have to use index pages and multiple sitemaps to achieve this? Presumably I could then style them to look like the rest of my site with an XSLT stylesheet?

Also, as a beginner to Google sitemaps if anyone has any general hints and tips, dos and don'ts I would be grateful to hear them. Other general questions I have include:

Presumably everyone is in agreement that Google Sitemaps are actually worth bothering with in the first place? What values should I put in the optional fields? If I think my page might change yearly but there is a possibility it could change more often, could I hurt my site by underestimating this? Or should I not include the optional fields at all if I'm not sure?

Thanks! :)

[tedster]

I think you're taking on too much by trying to create an XML sitemap that can also be transformed into your human readable sitemap. All of my clients who use both kinds of sitemps keep the process simple and create both the xml file and html files separately.

Still, I can hear where you're coming from. Maybe someone else is doing it and we'll hear from them in this thread.

[edited by: tedster at 9:07 pm (utc) on Dec. 5, 2007]

[eltercerhombre]

I really like to have different sitemaps (xml and html) as for large websites the xml one can contain all the URL's, while the HMTL can be too large many times if you put all the URL's.

However, if you want to go with your idea, Google reads xml files and its links, so just apply an xls style sheet to you xml sitemap.

There's a well know application for creating sitemaps that does this. But IMHO, if you have a large website this Sitemap will be too large and therefore not user friendly.

[HelenDev]

Thanks for the replies guys, some further research and practical experimentation leads me to the conclusion that this is not possible. The Sitemap XML protocol appears to be missing a vital element for human readable sitemaps - the page title.

[Simsi]

You can write a PHP function on your "human" page to grab the title from a given URL..perhaps store it once grabbed so it doesn't do it every time?

[HelenDev]

Thanks Simsi, I did think about doing that. What I've finally gone for is an xml file which contains all the data I want to include and is processed with php for the human readable sitemap. The google one will then be a copy of this but with the extra tags stripped out.