Saturday, June 16, 2007

Sitemap Search Engine Optimization

You can now add your blogger (blogspot) blog to Google sitemaps which will increase your chances of being indexed in Google search engine results and hence attract more visitors and readers to your site. To do this you can follow these simple steps as described below

1: Login to Google Sitemap with your google account

After logging in add your site by just pasting the URL (eg: http://icetrail.blogspot.com/) of your blog. Then you will get the confirmation that your site has been added to your account.

2: Now you need to verify your ownership of blog. Click on verify link. There are two methods of verification. The first option to upload an HTML file is not possible with Blogger, So you have to adopt the second option to add a META tag to your site’s index file. Adding META tag via template code is easy so just select the META tag option from the menu:

Now open your Blogger account dashboard in a new internet explorer window leaving the earlier window open.

Copy the meta tag code generated and paste it into your blogger template by logging to your blogger account. If you are using the new templates with the layout feature then From Blogger Dashboard go to Layout and from their select 'edit html' and Paste the META tag code just after the tag. Then click on Save Template below.

In the classic template also you have to add the code in the template page similarly. Click on Republish Index only button.

4: Now go to Google sitemap and click the box that read as follows:

I’ve added the META tag in the home page and then click on Verify button. Now your site will be added to sitemap account after verification is done.

5: Next you need to add actual sitemap url. Since blogger doesn't allow you to create a text file or anything else you need to add your site feed (eg: http://icetrail.blogspot.com/atom.xml) file as a site map, which is available for most almost all blogs if you have the feed enabled.

Click on add a sitemap link

Select type as : Add General Web Sitemap

Paste url of your Atom feed (eg: http://icetrail.blogspot.com/atom.xml) and click on Add Web sitemap.

Note: Blogger generally allows the atom feed to lists only the latest 25 of your recent posts, so to add all the posts in your blog in the sitemap you should add the following codes instead of the above:

If you have less than 100 posts:

http://icetrail.blogspot.com/atom.xml?redirect=false&start-index=1&max-results=100

If you have more than 100 but below 200 you have to add a second sitemap by:

http://icetrail.blogspot.com/atom.xml?redirect=false&start-index=101&max-results=100

Similarly you have to go on adding sitemaps in similar fashion if you have more than 200 posts


Google will process your Sitemap and provide information on any errors in the Sitemaps tab as well your sitemap will be downloaded everyday to index your blog fast. Initially it will take some time before your sitemap is indexed.

After sitemap is addes your blog will be now index very fast (depend upon your posting and content).


Similarly you can add sitemaps now to Yahoo search engine and Microsoft Bing search engine also by adding the atom feed xml for more visitors to your site through here.

Yahoo

Bing


After you submit to Yahoo and Bing remember to add both your site as well as your site feed xml for best results by crawling through the different webmaster tools.

Update: Google has perhaps simplified the procedure for adding sites to its sitemap section.
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