To add Google sitemap to your blog, go to Google sitemap, and sign in with your Google Account (create one if you don't have one). In the Add site box, enter your blog url as shown in the screenshot below, and click OK. (In this post, there will be many screenshots. To enlarge them, click on the screenshot)
You will get a "Your site has been added to your account. Verify your ownership to view detailed statistics and errors for it" message and a button to verify your ownership.
Click the "Verify" text hyperlink, and you will be taken to a selection box to select your verification method.
Choose "Add a Meta tag". A meta tag will be generated for you.
Highlight this meta tag and copy it to clipboard. Sign into Dashboard, select your blog, click TEMPLATE tab and paste the meta tag in between the <head> and </head> tags. Save and republish. Check the "I've added the META tag in the home page of http://your-blog-url.com/" box and click the [verify] button.
There will be a message "We do not know about all the pages of your site. [Submit a Sitemap] to tell us more about your site. Click [Submit a Sitemap] and in the "Choose type..." selection box, select "Add General Web Sitemap".
Tick
[tick] I've created a Sitemap in a supported format. [?]
[tick] I've uploaded my Sitemap to the highest-level directory to which I have access.
[tick] My Sitemap URL is: [ ]
then enter the site feed URL into the "My Sitemap URL is: box. You can get the site feed url of your blog from SETTINGS. Click SETTINGS, SITE FEED tabs in the Dashboard.
In the case of blogspot, just add /atom.xml to the end of the blog URL. (For example, the site feed URL of this blog is http://blogger-tricks.blogspot.com/atom.xml.) Then click "Add Web Sitemap" and you are done.
Update 22 April 2007: This post was written before New Blogger (formerly Blogger Beta) was introduced. If you are with New Blogger, use the feed URL. There are 4 possible feed URL for the New blogger:
http://yourblog.blogspot.com/atom.xml
http://yourblog.blogspot.com/rss.xml
http://yourblog.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/full
http://yourblog.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss
substituting "your blog" with the actual name of your blog. The feed found by Feedburner for this blog are:
http://blogger-tricks.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default
http://blogger-tricks.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss
There is one further thing you can do, and that is to enable enhanced image search. At the bottom of the page, tick "Enhanced Image Search".
What does it mean to opt-in to enhanced image search? If you choose to enable enhanced image search, Google will use tools such as Google Image Labeler to associate the images included in your site with labels that will improve indexing and search quality of those images.
Bookmark this page so that you can return to it whenever you want to ping Google Sitemap, which should be whenever you update your blog.
It sounds bizarre, almost counterintuitive, but many of best minds in the world of SEO appear to be rallying around the idea that submitting a feed to Google Sitemaps and Yahoo! Site Explorer is actually a terrible idea. The logic behind the practice is simple, if you follow the steps:
Enormously big sites, who will see more value from having thousands of extra pages included in the index, even if it means a few stragglers are left behind are exempt from this rule. So, too, are sites managed by a team who is unwilling or unable to take the time to detect and fix omissions.
Don't get me wrong - Sitemap submission is an amazing and valuable tool in a webmaster's arsenal, but it's also one that should be wielded with careful knowledge of the side effects. I'd love to hear your opinions on the subject.
"Hello i'd like to share my experience of sitemaps with you... i have a small site - 170 pages that i launced with a sitemap - after 3 months i was frustrated with only a handful of pages showing up in the SERPS - so i removed the sitemap and voila - within 48 hours 90% of my site was crawled and my traffic rocketed. I used a Google sitemap generator tool to create the sitemap in the first place - probably wasnt correctly formatted but it still verified ok with G. The moral of the story - IMO don't use a sitemap unless you A) Know exactly what you are doing and B) you have to."
You have any information or experience regarding this, I hope you will comment and let us know.
You will get a "Your site has been added to your account. Verify your ownership to view detailed statistics and errors for it" message and a button to verify your ownership.
Click the "Verify" text hyperlink, and you will be taken to a selection box to select your verification method.Choose "Add a Meta tag". A meta tag will be generated for you.
Highlight this meta tag and copy it to clipboard. Sign into Dashboard, select your blog, click TEMPLATE tab and paste the meta tag in between the <head> and </head> tags. Save and republish. Check the "I've added the META tag in the home page of http://your-blog-url.com/" box and click the [verify] button.
There will be a message "We do not know about all the pages of your site. [Submit a Sitemap] to tell us more about your site. Click [Submit a Sitemap] and in the "Choose type..." selection box, select "Add General Web Sitemap".
Tick[tick] I've created a Sitemap in a supported format. [?]
[tick] I've uploaded my Sitemap to the highest-level directory to which I have access.
[tick] My Sitemap URL is: [ ]
then enter the site feed URL into the "My Sitemap URL is: box. You can get the site feed url of your blog from SETTINGS. Click SETTINGS, SITE FEED tabs in the Dashboard.
In the case of blogspot, just add /atom.xml to the end of the blog URL. (For example, the site feed URL of this blog is http://blogger-tricks.blogspot.com/atom.xml.) Then click "Add Web Sitemap" and you are done.
Update 22 April 2007: This post was written before New Blogger (formerly Blogger Beta) was introduced. If you are with New Blogger, use the feed URL. There are 4 possible feed URL for the New blogger:
http://yourblog.blogspot.com/atom.xml
http://yourblog.blogspot.com/rss.xml
http://yourblog.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/full
http://yourblog.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss
substituting "your blog" with the actual name of your blog. The feed found by Feedburner for this blog are:
http://blogger-tricks.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default
http://blogger-tricks.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss
There is one further thing you can do, and that is to enable enhanced image search. At the bottom of the page, tick "Enhanced Image Search".
What does it mean to opt-in to enhanced image search? If you choose to enable enhanced image search, Google will use tools such as Google Image Labeler to associate the images included in your site with labels that will improve indexing and search quality of those images.
Ping Google sitemap
Now, whenever you update your blog, just ping Google sitemap by filling in the form below. Enter your blog feed url (***.blogspot.com/atom.xml) and click "Ping Google Sitemap" button.Bookmark this page so that you can return to it whenever you want to ping Google Sitemap, which should be whenever you update your blog.
It sounds bizarre, almost counterintuitive, but many of best minds in the world of SEO appear to be rallying around the idea that submitting a feed to Google Sitemaps and Yahoo! Site Explorer is actually a terrible idea. The logic behind the practice is simple, if you follow the steps:
- Without sitemaps, a search engine visits your site's pages through links on and off the site, indexing and ranking those pages it deems worthy of being indexed and ranked.
- When a search engine crawls your site and fails to index particluar pages, you have a signal from the engines that those pages lack the necessary components for inclusion, be they architectural, link strength, content-related, etc.
- Sitemaps enables search engine to crawl and index pages that they might not ordinarily include in a normal crawl process.
- If a page lacks the link juice, internally or externally, or has content that engines wouldn't normally deem worthy of indexing, Sitemaps may overlook these weaknesses and include those pages in their indices.
Enormously big sites, who will see more value from having thousands of extra pages included in the index, even if it means a few stragglers are left behind are exempt from this rule. So, too, are sites managed by a team who is unwilling or unable to take the time to detect and fix omissions.
Don't get me wrong - Sitemap submission is an amazing and valuable tool in a webmaster's arsenal, but it's also one that should be wielded with careful knowledge of the side effects. I'd love to hear your opinions on the subject.
"Hello i'd like to share my experience of sitemaps with you... i have a small site - 170 pages that i launced with a sitemap - after 3 months i was frustrated with only a handful of pages showing up in the SERPS - so i removed the sitemap and voila - within 48 hours 90% of my site was crawled and my traffic rocketed. I used a Google sitemap generator tool to create the sitemap in the first place - probably wasnt correctly formatted but it still verified ok with G. The moral of the story - IMO don't use a sitemap unless you A) Know exactly what you are doing and B) you have to."
You have any information or experience regarding this, I hope you will comment and let us know.