Google & Yahoo can look at your site map
My previous blog looked at how to create a site map using XML Sitemaps to improve the probability that search engines will find all the pages of your website or blog. Here’s a banner link to the free and paid versions of XML Sitemaps:
Today, I’ll look at what to do with the site map for Google and Yahoo to use the information when looking at the content and links on your website.
For the most part, this blog entry today assumes that you’re using the FREE version of XML Sitemaps (for websites less than 500 pages). In contrast, the advantage to purchasing the version that you install on your own server is that you can automate the process of creating site maps and telling telling the search engines when your site map has been updated. If your website or blog has never had a sitemap, completing this manual process once in a while will put you better off than when you started, especially if you don’t frequently add new pages to your site.
Start off by running XML Sitemaps on your website. This can take seconds or minutes depending on the number of pages in your site. When the results appear, you’ll want to save two of the output files onto your computer’s hard drive - described below as the first step for each - Google and Yahoo.
Google Webmaster Tools
(1) Download the file sitemap.xml and save it to your computer.
(2) Upload the file to the “top level directory” on your website (for example, http://you-real-website-url.com/sitemap.xml).
(3) Goto Google Webmaster Tools. Login using your Google username and password. (You’ll need to create a FREE Google account if you don’t already have one.)
(4) Enter the URL of your site (for example, http://your-real-website-url.com) in the “Add Site” box and press OK.
(5) Optional: In order to gain access to enhanced statistics and reports about your site from Google, you can “Verify Your Site” - which means proving to Google that it is really your website. This is not required in order to upload your site map or have Google use your site map to find your website content. You can do this one of two ways. Either you’ll need to upload a file to your site or upload a META tag onto your site’s index file. (OK, this can be somewhat techie.) Once you perform this step, you would press “Verify” to tell Google to check whether you properly uploaded the verification information to your website.
(6) Select “Add a Sitemap.” Then, select “Add General Web Sitemap.” In the box for the filename, enter the URL to which you uploaded your file sitemap.xml (for example, http://you-real-website-url.com/sitemap.xml).
(7) That’s it… now you just wait days or weeks for Google to crawl your site using the site map. You can always return to Google Webmaster Tools and click on the URL of your website, select the “Sitemaps” tab, check the box next to the filename you’re using, and press “Resubmit Selected.” If you go back to the “Diagnostic” tab you can see when was the last time that Google crawled your website. Here’s more info about Google Site Maps.
Yahoo Site Search Explorer
(1) Download the file urllist.txt and save it to your computer.
(2) Upload the file to the “top level directory” on your website (for example, http://you-real-website-url.com/urllist.txt).
(3) Goto Yahoo Search Site Explorer. Login using your Yahoo username and password. (You’ll need to create a FREE Yahoo account if you don’t already have one.)
(4) Under “Submit Site Feed” - enter the URL where you uploaded your file urllist.txt (for example, http://you-real-website-url.com/urllist.txt).
(5) Optional: In order to gain access to enhanced statistics and reports about your site from Yahoo, you can “Authenticate” your site - which means proving to Yahoo that it is really your website. This is not required in order to upload your site map or have Yahoo use your site map to find your website content. You can do this one of two ways. Either you’ll need to upload a file to your site or upload a META tag onto your site’s index file. Once you perform this step, you would press “Authenticate” to tell Yahoo to check whether you properly uploaded the authentication information to your website.
(76 That’s it… now you just wait days or weeks for Yahoo to crawl your site using the site map. You can always return to Yahoo Search Site Explorer (this is a slightly different URL to “Manage Your Sites”) and click on the URL of your website, check the box next to the filename you’re using, and press “Resubmit.” Here you can also see you can see when was the last time that Yahoo crawled your website. If you go back to the previous page and press “Explore” next to your website URL, you can see a list of all the pages that Yahoo has indexed from your website. Here’s more info about Yahoo Site Explorer.
These FREE, slightly techie steps will help you ensure that your entire website is crawled and indexed by Google and Yahoo.
All is well.
