Google Sitemap: Make your site index faster in Google

Google Sitemap is not a new thing to a webmaster. It is a tool that helps you to tell Google every time you make some updates to your blog. I just used Google Sitemap a few weeks ago but today, I just realized the way to make Google index my blog faster. I just get a little frustrated because Google have to take about 4 or 5 days to crawl my blog. Then, with some effort, I looked around and read the help file from Google on how to make Google index my site faster.

Adding a Sitemap

The first step is adding a sitemap of your blog. This can be done in a few simple steps. Just follow this order:-

1. Go to this link https://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/stats

2. In the box ‘add a site’, type in your blog’s URL. For example ‘http://i-want-to-be-a-millionaire.blogspot.com’. After that you should receive a conformation like this:- Your site has been added to your account. Verify your ownership to view detailed statistics and errors for it.

3. Click ‘Add a Sitemap’. Choose ‘Add General Web Sitemap' and check all the box. Fill in the sitemap URL with your atom.xml URL. Atom.xml is your blog’s URL followed by /atom.xml (for bloggers only. Others can try searching for Google sitemap generator by using the search box above). For example, ‘http://i-want-to-be-a-millionaire.blogspot.com/atom.xml’. Then, click ‘Add Web Sitemap’

4. Click ‘Verify’. Choose ‘Add a META tag’ under the ‘choose verification method’. Add the META tag generated according to the instruction given. Then, check the box ‘I’ve added the META tag ….’. Click Verify.

Ping Google sitemap

This step will help your site index faster in Google. It will notify Google any updates occurred in your blog. This is how you can do it:-

Type this in your browser navigation bar: www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/ping?sitemap=sitemap_url

For example: www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/ping? sitemap=http://i-want-to-be-a-millionaire.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Then, you will get a conformation like this:-

Sitemap Notification Received

Your Sitemap has been successfully added to our list of Sitemaps to crawl. If this is the first time you are notifying Google about this Sitemap, please add it via http://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps so you can track its status. Please note that we do not add all submitted URLs to our index, and we cannot make any predictions or guarantees about when or if they will appear.

P.S. Do ping Google Sitemap every time you make an update to your blog. And please tell your friends about this blog if you find the content useful. Thanks!

Categories: Blogging, Search engine optimization