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As you come to the end of designing your website, you will need to create a Site Map so that users can navigate around quickly. Additionally a Site Map is an essential tool to have in your arsenal when you want search engines to see your site. Obviously, it's not the only method a search engine utilizes but it's accepted as its one. The focus of this tutorial therefore is creating a Site Map quickly and easily using Web Assist's Surveyor Extension available from their website or from Adobe's Exchange. Here's a completed site, albeit a small one, that doesn't have a Site Map built as yet. Well, you could go through the process of creating a Site Map manually but by using Surveyor it's all done automatically. There are two files required initially before you progress, though. You need an Index Page and a Blank Page that will act as a placeholder page for your soon to be generated Site Map. Note I've got an Index Page and a file called Site Map Blank. HTML here. Here in Dreamweaver's Design View the first step then is to go to Insert, drop down to Web Assist, then across to Surveyor, and then first choose XML Site Map. The first step of the Surveyor Interface opens and we are presented with three options. I'm going to choose the first option, Create from Site, because the second option assumes you already have the XML file generated already. And the third option is available for selecting pages manually. I'm in a hurry. I don't want that option. OK, I'll click Next to move forward. In the Configure Link Settings dialog box I insert my full website address in the top field here. In the second field I found it easier to browse to the required location so that the Site Map location is saved correctly. I'll name the file then click Save. Web Assist provides a very comprehensive Help Guide but at present it's enough to know that the remaining fields can be left at the defaults. The Field Names are self-explanatory, but refer to the PDF documents if you need any further details, you ensure the last tick box is ticked, it should be by default. OK, click Finish. Now, Surveyor starts to inspect the files and imports them. We only have six pages so it won't take long. Finally, this Interface opens to inform us of the file paths it found. This should be correct but you can Add, Delete, or Cut pages as you deem necessary. To help search engines I allow the Date the Files were Last Modified, just click here to choose a date. Then I'll state the files will be altered each month. Now, I'll click Finish. We now move on to the second process in using Surveyor. I'll open my Site Map Blank. HTML file and click where I want the Site Map to sit on the page. Now we go back to Insert, Web Assist, Surveyor, and over to HTML Site Map. Now, just browse to where your just previously created XML Site Map is. Now, click Next. In true Web Assist style you now get to choose the style and design of your Site Map. Just browse the Presets to see what suits your design, and a preview appears at the bottom left here. On the right notice you can Add, Delete, or Cut files as you feel necessary. I'll also change my Header Name to something more specific. Then, finally just click Finish and a Site Map, courtesy of Surveyor! I'll go to my Browser and there you have it. I agree, not the most exhaustive of site maps owing to this tutorial, only containing a few files, but a good perfectly usable example. So, to recap, Site Maps aren't the most glamorous part of a website, but they are necessary to help search engines and consequently the rankings of the site, and there's no better automatic Site Map generator than Web Assist's Surveyor, a good, very useful Extension for the designer in a hurry.