Submitting a Sitemap
Submitting a Sitemap
What is a sitemap?
A sitemap serves as a map of your website, providing a list of all your webpages for search engines to locate and index easily. A well-designed website and sitemap enhance user experience, improve website navigation and boost your search engine rankings.
How do you submit a sitemap?
There are various methods to submit your sitemap. One common method is using the webmaster tools provided by search engines where you log in and submit the link to your sitemap. Alternatively, you can submit your sitemap directly to the search engine through an URL or direct upload. For WordPress users, installing a plugin can automate sitemap submission to search engines.
What to consider before submitting a sitemap?
Prior to sitemap submission, you need to create a sitemap. The key steps include understanding your site organization, arranging your pages, coding your URLs and validating your sitemap. Once the sitemap is verified, submit it via site tools. For Google and Bing, use their respective Search Console and Webmasters Tools.
Submitting a sitemap to Google:
- Understand the structure of your website
- Arrange your URLs using XML tags
- Validate your URL codes
- Add sitemap to robots.txt
- Set up Google Search Console
- Submit sitemap to Google
Understanding your website structure
Sitemaps are essentially a website blueprint assisting search engines in finding, crawling and indexing all your site’s content. Ensure that your website is structured hierarchically and the vital pages are nearest to the URL.
Formatting URLs using XML tags
Below is a typical XML coding format:
<?xml version=”1.0″ encoding=”UTF-8″?>
<urlset xmlns=”http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9″>
<url>
<loc>http://www.example.com/blog.html</loc>
<lastmod>2023-04-11</lastmod>
</url>
</urlset>
Important information included in the code are:
- Last modified date – 2023-04-11
- Location – http://www.example.com/blog.html
- Changed frequency – weekly (if inaccurately reported, search engines might ignore it)
Verifying URL codes
You should ensure that there are no human errors in manual coding by using an XML sitemap validator to ascertain your sitemap is error-free.
Add sitemap to robots.txt
After successful validation, you should add your sitemap to your robots.txt. This file informs spiders which file directories to avoid.
Setup a Google Search Console
The Google Search Console is a platform for you to submit your sitemap to Google.
Submit a sitemap to Google
Upon completing the previous steps, you are now prepared to submit your sitemap to Google, using a straightforward navigation procedure.
Following these instructions can ensure seamless sitemap submission and proper indexing of your website by search engines.
Related: Robots.txt
Related: Google Search Console