Do I have to add a sitemap to google?

[beepers88]

Hi

Just wondered if it's enough to add a Sitemap to my site or do I have to upload it to google somewhere?

Also is it better to have a .xml or a .html?

thanks

[kevinpotts]

It's good to add it to google by the webmaster section in your account in Google.

This will help the Google robots to find your website fast.

If you have an .xml file you can upload it or they will create one for you.

Remember: The easie you make for google to find your page the better!

K.

[Louise Green]

And you might have to verify your site first, which is just adding a bit of code to your site or adding a new html file to your root directory.

Best of luck

[Agnel]

Create your XML sitermap here www(dot)xml-sitemaps(dot)com and submit the file into the Google webmaster tool.

Thanks

[abinowbhat]

Sitemap helps Google to crawl inner pages which their spiders may have missed. If you are using wordpress then there is a free plugin Google XML sitemap generator which generates sitemap automatically and also pings Google.

[johnlagoudakis]

For SEO purposes, is it good to have both an .xml file (like the ones created in Wordpress by the Google XML Sitemap plugin) and also a static html/php page called "Site Map" with links to your site's main pages?

[lastname]

if you using wordpress you can use xml sitemap generator plugin (for search engine spider) and dagon design (for human visitor)

[magentawave]

I just logged into my Google Account / Webmaster Tools and Google is showing a big red X and showing an error saying that ALL the sitemaps for my self-hosted Wordpress are HTML.

This is what the message says next to a big red X:

Sitemap is HTML
Your Sitemap appears to be an HTML page. Please use a supported sitemap format instead.

Does anyone know why its doing this and how I can fix this? I Googled the issue and don't see a solution that applies to me.

Thank you very much
Steve

[dburk]

Hi Steve,

Sounds like you haven't formated your sitemap properly. Visit Sitemaps.org for details on the Sitemap protocol.

@beepers88,

It's not necessary to submit your sitemap, you can simply specify the location in your Robots.txt file. All the major search engines support this method.

[magentawave]

Originally Posted by dburk

Hi Steve,

Sounds like you haven't formated your sitemap properly. Visit Sitemaps.org for details on the Sitemap protocol.

Like always, I've been using the ALL In One SEO Plugin and Dagons Sitemap Generator. Hmmm, maybe its a coincidence, but I didn't have this problem until I started using Jeff Johnsons Traffic Getting SEO Plugin (the free version). It apparently applies tweaks to the sitemap and also added numbers to all my urls like this (and I'd like to get rid of those numbers too.).

Before using the Traffic Getting SEO Plugin:
MyDomain.com/internal-page
(Which is the way I like my urls.)

After using the Traffic Getting SEO Plugin:
MyDomain.com/7314/internal-page
(Notice the numbers 7314? Of course each internal url has different numbers.)

Got any more thoughts about this?

Thanks for checking this out.

Steve

[nbookcity]

Download the sitemap file and put it into the "public_html/" folder of your site.
Thanks

[nbookcity]

Let me know if that has been helpful.

[magentawave]

Originally Posted by nbookcity

Download the sitemap file and put it into the "public_html/" folder of your site.
Thanks

But how do you do that for a self-hosted Wordpress site?

Steve

[clickbump]

I always use the free tool here: Create your Google Sitemap Online - XML Sitemaps Generator

Then upload that to my site and point to it in Google Webmaster control panel.

[dburk]

Originally Posted by magentawave

Like always, I've been using the ALL In One SEO Plugin and Dagons Sitemap Generator. Hmmm, maybe its a coincidence, but I didn't have this problem until I started using Jeff Johnsons Traffic Getting SEO Plugin (the free version). It apparently applies tweaks to the sitemap and also added numbers to all my urls like this (and I'd like to get rid of those numbers too.).

Before using the Traffic Getting SEO Plugin:
MyDomain.com/internal-page
(Which is the way I like my urls.)

After using the Traffic Getting SEO Plugin:
MyDomain.com/7314/internal-page
(Notice the numbers 7314? Of course each internal url has different numbers.)

Got any more thoughts about this?

Thanks for checking this out.

Steve

Hi Steve,

You can change the URL structure in Wordpress by going to Settings and select Permalinks. Under the Custome Structure option change

/%post_id%/%postname%/

To

/%postname%

You want to do this early on before you start building backlinks, because changing your link structure will break any previously created backlinks.

[Larozhfuko]

- I think besides adding the Sitemap to your site, you'd better ping it to Google, Yahoo, Ask, etc.
- XML sitemap is better.

Also if you have videos in your website, it would be better to create a separate videositemap for Google, so your site can appear in Google Videos.
I'm using Sitemap Writer Pro, version 5.0.0.

[aftermath]

Sitemaps are a great way to get major portion of your website get indexed. Submitting a sitemap to Google can do great help in indexation along with getting a link from high PR blog.

Check out the free tools to generate sitemaps. Sitemap Writer Pro is one such good tool.

[bgmacaw]

In my experience, you only need to submit a sitemap for larger, more complex, sites, such as ecommerce sites with 1000's of products, and/or sites with poor site navigation options (Flash based menus, etc).

A typical, properly configured, WordPress or static HTML smaller niche site will be quickly indexed. There's no need to submit a sitemap for these sites in most cases.

I'd also add that you need to be careful about using WordPress automatic Google sitemap generator plugins in conjunction with autoblogging plugins. This will use a tremendous amount of processing resources and will probably get you suspended on a shared hosting account.

[Arich123]

thanks all to share information about sitemap.