How do I add my sitemap to Google

Although sitemaps can be quite important, they don't actually improve your search rankings, what they do is to let search engines know where all of your pages are so that they can crawl them correctly.

Your Superia website creates a sitemap in both HTML and XML, the HTML version is for human vistors to see, and the XML version is mainly used to submit to search engines.

This article will help you to send your XML sitemap file to Google, letting it know where all of your pages are and inviting it to visit them.

First you will need to have a Google Webmaster Tools account, which you can sign up for here. If you already have a Google account then all you need to do is to sign in, otherwise set up a new Google account.

If you havent already done so you will need to add a new property to your Webmaster Tools account, a property is just a domain (or app), such as your website.

  • Click the Add a property button.
  • Make sure the new property type is set to Website
  • Type in the full URL of your website such as http://www.yourdomain.co.uk
  • Click Add

You will then be asked to verify the ownership of your site

  • Click on the alternative methods tab
  • Select HTML Tag
  • You will then be provided with a HTML tag that looks something like this
    • <meta name="google-site-verification" content="0X00xXxxXxxxXxx0_0XxXx0XXXxxx00XxxxxxXxXxxX" />
    • All you will need is the value in the content section, so the bit that says
      • 0X00xXxxXxxxXxx0_0XxXx0XXXxxx00XxxxxxXxXxxX
  • Copy the value from the content for later use.

Now log into your Superia admin area

  • Go to Configuration > General
  • Go to the SEO tab
  • Under the Google Tools section, paste your google site verification code into the field called Google Sitemaps verification meta tag key
    • Make sure to have only pasted the actual content rather than the whole meta tag
  • Click Save

Now you can go back to your verification of your new property in Google and click the verify button, if you have done everything correctly then your property will now have been successfully verified.

Now all you need to do is to tell Google where your sitemap is for your website. So in Google Webmaster Tools do the following;

  • Make sure you have selected the property for your website
  • In the left hand menu go to Crawl > Sitemaps
  • Click the Add/Test Sitemap button
  • The field should already have the beginning part of your website because that is the property you are using, so just add sitemap.xml to the field and click submit

That's it, your sitemap is now accessible to Google and it will be able to crawl all of the pages on your site.

When you update your site and change or add new pages it will automatically update your sitemap XML file, and Google will be able to see the changes, so once you have done all of the above there is no need to do any of it again, however it is worth revisting the Webmaster Tools section at regular intervals to see if there are any issues with your website or sitemap, however if there are any issues then Google should send you an email.

It might also be worth reading through the following support article on Google https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/6258314?utm_source=wnc_376106&utm_medium=gamma&utm_campaign=wnc_376106&utm_content=msg_743502&hl=en&authuser=0


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