Sitemap File Creation and Sitemap Submission - class 15

Sitemap File Creation:

A sitemap is a html/xml file that denotes the addresses of each of the webpage in the site, when such files are submitted in the search engine's webmastertools all the pages are added gradually just with click of a button.

Before you can submit the sitemap,need to first create the sitemap file for your website.

Creating sitemap file for general websites

In general websites like .net, java, html, php etc... you need to make use of sitemap generator softwares to create the sitemap file.

Eg. www.xml-sitemaps.com

Create ---> Download the file ---> Upload it in the root folder of your website where it is hosted.

After the above steps, your sitemap file would be available online at the location: abc.com/sitemap.xml

b. In Blogger: By default sitemap file is created in the blogger site along with blog booking.
The sitemaps can be checked at the following locations:
abc.blogspot.com/atom.xml    or
abc.blogspot.com/rss.xml           or
abc.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/full

Any one of the mentioned above file can be submitted for for indexing in the webmastertools

 In wordpress

By default sitemap file is not created in wordpress, one must make use of sitemap plugins like 'google xml sitemaps' to create the sitemap file.

After installing and activating the plugin, from the left ---> xml sitemaps ---> build the sitemap file

This will automatically create the sitemap file at the location: abc.com/sitemap.xml

 Submitting Sitemap in the webmaster tools

A webmaster tools account is meant for the masters of the website as it name goes, nothing but the seo experts.

Within the webmaster tools we can check, the accurate ranking of each keyword and page and how it is performing in the search engines, how many new people see and click, ctr ratio, position under different time period etc..

One would be getting timely notification from google with regard to your site like malware attacks, spam detection or any other types of messages related to performace of your site.

One can also check for any major errors the search engines have detected in your site, one can have a settings of SEO transfer from old site to new, submit all the pages in the search engines, set the location and check accurately the off page marks.

Every major search engines have their own webmaster's account, in google it is present at the location: google.com/webmastertools

Before you can submit the sitemap file in the webmaster tools, you'll have to first add and verify the website.

Process to add site in google webmaster tools
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1. Login in google.com/webmastertools using your gmail account.
2. Click on 'add a website'  ----> give the website address in the format shown (check with 'www' extension), click on continue
3. Select the 'html tag' method to verify the ownership of the website.
4. Copy the meta tag shown and place it in the head section of the html in homepage.
5. Click on 'verify' in webmaster tools.

You'll receive a notification as 'success' which means domain has been added successfully.

Note: If your site is a blogger and the id of blogger account is same like webmastertools then you'll find that your site is already verified you just need to submit the sitemap file of it.

To submit the sitemap, click on the verified site, go to: sitemaps ---> add/test sitemap ---> give the location of the sitemap file ---> submit

Gradually all the pages would indexed over time, the blue bar is the number of pages you have submitted and red is the number of pages that has been indexed.

Note: By default the sitemap file of blogger would add only the first 26 pages for indexing.

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To submit the first 500 pages of blogger site for indexing you need to submit the sitemap with extension as shown below:

abc.blogspot.com/atom.xml?redirect=false&start-index=27&max-results=500

like wise for the next 500 pages one more sitemap file has to be submitted with the following address:

abc.blogspot.com/atom.xml?redirect=false&start-index=528&max-results=500

.... and so on for every 500 pages a sitemap file has to be submitted for blogger site but the sitemap files can be submitted in advance too before publishing the pages at all.

Note: In the similar process as shown above the sitemap should be submitted in each of the major search engine's webmastertools like,
yahoo, bing, alexa, msn etc... but when you have site in blogger and wordpress google account would be sufficient as the other search engines will take the data from here.

Every time you create a new page, delete a page or modify the url, in a general website, again a fresh sitemap file should be created, uploaded in the root folder by deleting the old file, and in webmasters account it must be resubmitted but, for blogger and wordpress it is automized so only once the sitemap file should be submitted.