Are you a junkie for the latest facts and figures on your web sites? I’m on a downward spiral of addiction the more I get into managing my own sites. Whenever I turn on my computer, I need to check my sites and see how they are doing. It sets the my mood for the rest of the day, as well as a plan of action, if needed.

My first stop is Google Analytics. All my sites are tracked there. I know it’s not the best application for analytical statistics, but you can’t beat the price for the amount of features. One gripe with GA is that they are so slow in updating their stat information. My sites are usually 4 hours behind, at least. If there is a way to default to the current day when selecting a site profile, please let me know. It would be a nice convenience. I am constantly checking the referring sources. Marketing Optimization > Visitor Segment Performance > Referring Source, if you are following along. Usually, if I see a new referrer, I’ll visit the site to see where I’m linked. StumbleUpon always beats out Google in volume for all my sites.

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According to product manager for Google Webmaster Central, Vanessa Fox, yes it is possible. On Thursday, Jan. 25, 2007 she appeared as guest on Greg Niland’s GoodKarma Radio Show.

I was concerned for myself, because I use their ping service three or four times a day when I approve content to ArticleOnRamp.com. She explained that anything more than once and hour would not be considered excessive. However, she said that if you site is a news site, pinging more often would be acceptable. She added, the news crawlers are always hungry for current news content.

A nice little tidbit to pass along as another way to keep on Google’s good side.

The top names in search have agreed on a common method for webmasters to submit their content for indexing. Google Yahoo and Microsoft announced today their support for an XML based open source site map protocol.

The Google sitemap protocol has been in use for the last 18 months. The protocol will be adopted today by Yahoo and Microsoft will begin using it in early 2007.

A sitemap is a structured XML document which lists all of a site’s pages with URL, title, last updated dates, and priority. These files allow for easier indexing of content by the search engines indexing robots.

Some popular sitemap generators:

• Audit My PC
• Sitemap Builder
• Google Sitemap Generator

The protocol will be at sitemaps.org beginning on Thursday.