04.19.2007

XML Sitemap Optimization with WordPress

This tutorial will show you how to generate a sitemap for a WordPress blog and tell most of the major search engines where your site map is located. Including a site map will increase the amount of pages that get index by search engines, and ultimately increase traffic to your website.

Recently Google, Yahoo, and MSN announced a standardized site map format. The new standard is an XML document that tells the search engine how to index your site. Using the Google Site Map Generator we can generate an XML sitemap, and later edit the robots.txt field to tell search engines where to look for this file.

First you will need to download the Google Site Map Generator V2.0 plug-in for WordPress. Save the file to disk and extract its contents using your favorite zip program. Now connect to your website with your favorite FTP client. I personally use SmartFTP.

Upload the plug to your plug-in directory, which is usually public_html/wp-content/Plugins/.

XML Sitemap Generator Tutorial for WordPress

While you are logged in, create two site map files and chmodd them 666. The two files are sitemap.xml.gz and sitemap.xml.

Now log into the WordPress Admin Panel and click the Plugins tab. Select the Google Sitemap Generator plug in and active this plugin.
XML Sitemap Generator Tutorial for WordPress

Now click the options tab, and then click the sitemap tab. Your will see the sitemap generator options displayed. The default options will work perfectly for most sites. If you wish to change the settings go ahead and do it, they are well commented. After you have made your changes, or accepted the defaults, click the rebuild sitemap button. You will only have to do this one time. After this the sitemap will be generated every time you post.

XML Sitemap Generator Tutorial for WordPress

WordPress should tell you that all files were successfully built.

XML Sitemap Generator Tutorial for WordPress

Take not of the URL that your sitemap.xml is located at. The last thing that we need to do is add a line to the robots.txt file that tells the search engines where to find the sitemap. If you would like to know more about robots.txt you can find it the information here.

Go back to your FTP program and edit the robots.txt file. Add the following line, obliviously replacing the URL with the URL of your sitemap.xml file. You can the find the URL on the sitemap tab in the previous step (copy it and paste it):

Sitemap: http://www.teamtutorials.com/sitemap.xml

After you save the changes you are finished. Adding a site map will help search engines crawl your site, therefore increasing the number of pages listed in the search engine. If you want to take it one step further you can manually add your site map to Google https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/siteoverview.

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Comments

  1. Anthony Carbone on April 19, 2007 at 5:11 pm

    Dude, this tutorial is JUST what I needed for a few of my other clients websites!! Thank you!

    [Reply]

  2. windowstweaker on August 26, 2007 at 3:25 am

    Dude i am getting a error saying “Could not ping to Google at http://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/ping?sitemap=http%3A%2F%2Fcb-calls.prohosts.org%2Fsitemap.xml+.gz” Can u plz tel me how to overcome this problem as fast as Possible

    THNX IN ADVANCE

    [Reply]

  3. RaiulBaztepo on March 28, 2009 at 5:58 pm

    Hello!
    Very Interesting post! Thank you for such interesting resource!
    PS: Sorry for my bad english, I’v just started to learn this language ;)
    See you!
    Your, Raiul Baztepo

    [Reply]

  4. PiterKokoniz on April 7, 2009 at 6:57 pm

    Hi !!! ;)
    My name is Piter Kokoniz. oOnly want to tell, that I’v found your blog very interesting
    And want to ask you: will you continue to post in this blog in future?
    Sorry for my bad english:)
    Thank you:)
    Your Piter

    [Reply]

  5. SQL Lion on July 8, 2009 at 3:41 pm

    How much time it is taking generally to create xml sitemap for the first time.
    this plugin is running on my system for more than 1 hour…
    is it some type of error or it got hanged….

    kindly reply….
    sqllion@gmail.com

    [Reply]

  6. Fernando Sweeney wrote a new blog post: XML Sitemap Optimization with Wordpress | Free Blog Hosting on March 17, 2010 at 10:45 am

    [...] Fernando Sweeney wrote a new blog post: XML Sitemap Optimization with WordPress Posted: 17th March 2010 by Free Blog – Site Wide Activity in Free Blog 0 Fernando Sweeney wrote a new blog post: XML Sitemap Optimization with WordPress This tutorial will show you how to generate a sitemap for a WordPress blog and tell most of the major search engines where your site map is located. Including a site map will increase the amount of pages that get index by search engines, and ultimately increase traffic to your website. XML Sitemap Optimization [...] [...]

  7. Gregory Maynard wrote a new blog post: XML Sitemap Optimization with Wordpress | Free Blog Hosting on March 17, 2010 at 11:18 am

    [...] Gregory Maynard wrote a new blog post: XML Sitemap Optimization with WordPress Posted: 17th March 2010 by Free Blog – Site Wide Activity in Free Blog 0 Gregory Maynard wrote a new blog post: XML Sitemap Optimization with WordPress This tutorial will show you how to generate a sitemap for a WordPress blog and tell most of the major search engines where your site map is located. Including a site map will increase the amount of pages that get index by search engines, and ultimately increase traffic to your website. XML Sitemap Optimization [...] [...]

  8. John on June 10, 2010 at 11:26 pm

    Nice post, we just installed the xml plugin and it works amazing it saves alot of time from building manaully.

    [Reply]

  9. Career Outlook on August 18, 2010 at 2:17 am

    Is a great plugin for creating the sitemap, but I found it little tricky to install.

    [Reply]