I have been attempting to create a sitemap for my website for the last couple of months. But each time I do, I either get a really small sitemap, or one that has over 1000 links.

http://www.thewebcamsite.net

I have used a couple of sitemap creation tools found on the web, but they have been difficult at best, due to the lack of information on how to properly use them.

I run a site that indexes webcams and all the information is maintained within a database. When a link is selected, it changes pages and pull that particular webcams info from the database and displays it.

But, when a sitemap program runs to create my sitemap, it hangs up, and all my links are either bad, broken, or the program runs forever with 1000 + links provided.

HELPPPPPPPP. I just am not sure what to do, and what I am doing wrong.

Thanks
Richard

Have you tried this one: http://www.xml-sitemaps.com/ ?
That's what I use, it's pretty easy.

I've found with sitemaps that if you have a large data driven php site it isn't entirely possible to keep an accurate sitemap, so what I usually do with a new site is list the main navigation and all sub categories and features, I don't list the individual users (in your case the different camera feeds) or I will only list a small amount just enough so the site shows it will develop in size over time.

I haven't used any xml packages either for the sitemap, I run an online art gallery and the site map for that was a .txt document individually listing the main navigation and categories, this I submitted to www.google.com as well as create a viewable sitemap for the end user. I believe having the two site maps helped.

Once google crawls your site they usually search out all the links themselves (slowly though). To check this go to google and do the search site:thewebcamsite.net this will list all the pages google has indexed of your site. I just checked and they list you on 22 pages so they've already got a good handle on your site structure :-)