XML Site Map | Are ALL Your Pages Indexed?
Does Your Blog Have a Google XML Sitemap?
In 2005, Google introduced the XML sitemap format… in 2006 it was adopted by the Yahoo, Bing, and Ask search-engines. This gave publishers a standard format to follow for creating one sitemap that the top search engines could use.
You can find specifics about the protocol at: http://www.sitemaps.org/.
Because blogs can become very large, a sitemap is often needed to ensure that the major search engines can locate, crawl, and index each individual web page. However, creating a sitemap by hand every time you make a new blog post gets very boring and redundant.
Thankfully, there is a WordPress plug-in called Google (XML) Sitemaps Generator for WordPress that takes all the work out of maintaining an up-to-date sitemap.
Once the plug-in is correctly installed, your sitemap is automatically rebuilt each time you make a new post. Not only that, the plug-in also pings the major search engines to alert them that you have updated your sitemap and added new content. This should bring them to your newly added web page(s).
This plug-in makes getting your web site fully indexed by Google, Yahoo, Bing, and Ask incredibly easy. The more pages you have indexed, the more chances you have of being returned in the search results. This plug-in is free, and has consistently been updated to match each WordPress blogging software update. However, the developer does accept donations for his time and effort.
The Google XML SiteMap Generator is located at: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/google-sitemap-generator/. Once you upload and activate the XML SiteMap Generator, click on the link “XML-Sitemap” under your Settings menu in your back office Dashboard. Once this page opens you will notice that your sitemap has not been created.
Click on the link to create the sitemap… when it completes, navigate down the page adding or removing the information you would like, then click on the Update options button at the bottom… you are done! This will now rebuild your sitemap and notify the search engines that you have check marked, each time you create new content.
Now that you’ve created an XML sitemap, you should have the option to add a physical HTML sitemap to your site too. Your blog theme should have a location for adding an HTML sitemap… mine was offered as a Template under my Page Attributes area (right side) in the ‘Page Editing’ area.
Adding an HTML sitemap aids in human user-friendliness, and also helps your sites structure for search-engine indexing.
Closing Comments About the XML Site Map for Blogs!
I have read some articles to where the writer has the opinion that site maps are not crucial for search engine optimization. My personal opinion is, if there is any tool out there that can assist the search engines to crawl my site for proper indexing in their database, I’m all for it.
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Do You Have any Thoughts or Opinions About the Google XML Sitemap Generator? Do You Have a Site Map for Your Blog?
About the Author (Author Profile)
John Engle, known as ‘The Blog Optimizer’, is a Search Engine Optimization Blogging Specialist Taking SEO by Storm! He Specializes in Keyword Research and On Page Optimization. If You are a Busy Entrepreneur that Would Rather Concentrate on What You Do Best, Leave the Keyword Research and Optimization to an SEO Specialist, Hire John as Your SEO Blog Post, On Page Optimizing Specialist.
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Thanks for putting this together
Hey Ray,
Thanks! You must have your spies on high alert!
This is the second time I posted an article and you were here to leave a comment with-in an hour or so.
Awesome!
Thanks,
John Engle