XML site maps that are submitted to google or yahoo is fast becoming a standard. Producing these in .NET can be straightforward. Here is my example site map generator class. The full generator must be passed a list of SitemapUrl objects, which is included in the project.

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The project is in VB, and is independent of ASP.NET, so it could also be used for scripting, and is available via google code.

The main goal for the library is to do one thing well: generate XML site maps. This is a very simple library designed to avoid using any unnecessary .NET libraries, such as any of the XML routines, aka lightweight. It is also made to be very hackable, and easy to implement.

Public Class XMLSitemap

 'This is a sitemap library of static functions to generate an xml sitemap for submission to google, yahoo, msn, etc 'Ian Lintner 'License: GPLv3 http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.html '7/15/2008

 Public Const XMLTag As String = "<?xml version=""1.0"" encoding=""utf-8"" standalone=""yes""?>" Public Const HeaderTag As String = "<urlset xmlns=""http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9"">" Public Const ClosingHeaderTag As String = "</urlset>" Public Const GroupingTag As String = "url" Public Const LocationTag As String = "loc" Public Const FrequencyTag As String = "freq" Public Const ModifiedTag As String = "lastmod" Public Const PriorityTag As String = "priority"

 'Example of sitemap ' '<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" standalone="yes"?> '<urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9"> '   <url> '       <loc>http://www.mysite.com/home.html</loc> '       <lastmod>2008-07-01</lastmod> '       <changefreq>Weekly</changefreq> '       <priority>1</priority> '   </url> '</urlset>

 'This is accepts mistakes in the object, if it doesn't find what it needs it just doesn't include it Public Shared Function AddSitemapUrl(ByVal SitemapUrl As SitemapUrl) As String     Dim myStringBuilder As New StringBuilder()

     If SitemapUrl.Location IsNot Nothing AndAlso SitemapUrl.Location <> String.Empty Then         myStringBuilder.AppendLine(AddIndentedNode(LocationTag, SitemapUrl.Location, 2))

         If Not SitemapUrl.LastUpdated = DateTime.MinValue Then             'Date Format in sitemaps must be in 2008-01-01 format!             myStringBuilder.AppendLine(AddIndentedNode(ModifiedTag, Format(SitemapUrl.LastUpdated, "yyyy-MM-dd"), 2))         End If

         If SitemapUrl.UpdateFrequency IsNot Nothing AndAlso SitemapUrl.UpdateFrequency <> String.Empty Then             myStringBuilder.AppendLine(AddIndentedNode(FrequencyTag, SitemapUrl.UpdateFrequency, 2))         End If

         If SitemapUrl.Priority > 0 AndAlso SitemapUrl.Priority <= 1 Then             myStringBuilder.AppendLine(AddIndentedNode(PriorityTag, SitemapUrl.Priority.ToString, 2))         End If

         myStringBuilder.AppendLine(String.Empty)

         Return AddIndentedNode(GroupingTag, myStringBuilder.ToString, 1)     Else         Return ""     End If

 End Function

 Public Shared Function AddIndentedNode(ByVal Name As String, ByVal Value As String, ByVal Indent As Integer) As String     Dim myIndent As String = ""

     For i As Integer = 1 To Indent         myIndent &= vbTab     Next

     Return AddNode(Name, Value, myIndent) End Function

 Public Shared Function AddNode(ByVal Name As String, ByVal Value As String, Optional ByVal Indent As String = "") As String     Dim myFormattedValue As String = Value.Replace("&", "&amp;")     Return Indent & "<" & Name & ">" & myFormattedValue & "</" & Name & ">" End Function

 Public Shared Function GenerateSitemap(ByVal SitemapUrlCollection As IEnumerable(Of SitemapUrl)) As String     Dim mySitemapEnumerator As IEnumerator(Of SitemapUrl)     Dim mySitemapStringBuilder As New StringBuilder()

     mySitemapStringBuilder.AppendLine(XMLTag)     mySitemapStringBuilder.AppendLine(HeaderTag)

     mySitemapEnumerator = SitemapUrlCollection.GetEnumerator()

     If mySitemapEnumerator IsNot Nothing Then         While mySitemapEnumerator.MoveNext             mySitemapStringBuilder.AppendLine(AddSitemapUrl(mySitemapEnumerator.Current))         End While     End If

     mySitemapStringBuilder.AppendLine(ClosingHeaderTag)

     Return mySitemapStringBuilder.ToString End Function

End Class

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