Submit wordpress sitemap.xml to Google

How to submit your wordpress blog or website and sitemap.xml then verify it in Google webmaster tools to get better indexing.

This is a must to do, if you want your wordpress blog visible to anyone out there, and want it to be found in Google search engine. This is one of the reasons i love wordpress, because it has a plugin which can build an XML file to help you to create a sitemap, for free.

To follow this steps, you need to get these stuff done:
1. Your default permalinks have been changed to more search engine friendly ones.
2. Optimize your blog’s meta tag, description and optimize your blog post with All in SEO pack plugin or any other plugin you choose.
3. You already have created sitemap.xml file. It is usually can be found when you type: yoursite.com/sitemap.xml in your browser.
4. Add your URL to Google addURL site. Here is the quick link.
5. You have a gmail account.

Let’s submit our blog to webmaster tool!

1. First step, go to google webmaster tool, and use your gmail account to sign in.
2. Once you are logged in, you will see an empty page where it says “Home” and empty site list.

Empty home with "add a site" button.

3. Click “Add a site button” type in your domain name, www.yourdomainname.com, and hit “Continue” button.

Type in your domain name.

4. Now, of course you will see your “Verification Status” is “Not Verfified”. We have to verify our site with copying and pasting “Meta Tag” code or uploading file. This tutorial is going to copy and paste the code.

5. So copy the code and go to your dashboard and look for “header.php”.

header.php

Look for this code: </head>
and paste the Google webmaster tool code before that line. (see image)
Click “Update file” button.

Where the code will be pasted.

6. Back to Google webmaster tool, click “Verify” button. Your site should be verified.
7. Now we are going to submit our sitemap.xml file too. Click “Google webmaster tools” logo.

Click the logo, red highlighted.

8. In “Home” page of webmaster tools, click the link to your site.

Click your site.

9. Scroll down, and you will see “Submit a sitemap” button. Type in your sitemap.xml inside the box, it depends on where you install wordpress.  For example, you have to type in /wordpress/sitemap.xml if you installed wordpress in “wordpress” subfolder. Once you are done, click “Submit sitemap”

Submit a sitemap button.

Type in "sitemap.xml" in the box.

10. It will say pending or it will have a small clock icon, it means it is still pending. Now time to build links for your blog, and it will help to get indexed fast.

There is more!

Have you heard about the confusion of indexing wordpress site with or without www? ( i spell www in German accent in the video lol!)

Well to avoid duplicating content issue, you can submit another version of your site which is without www (it depends on your general settings)

1. So go back to webmaster tools home, and repeat step 3. above to add a site. This time, type in your site URL but without www. so it will be: yourdomainname.com

2. Different with steps above, once you click “Continue” button you don’t need to verified, because it is already verified.

3. One thing to do is go back to Home of webmaster tools, and click your site link with www.

Click your site link.

4. Once you clicked the site link you will see in the left sidebar a “Site configuration” button, click the “+” button, and find “Settings”. Click this button.

Site configuration option.

5. You should see “preferred domain” options. Be careful, choose the option which matches in General settings of your blog’s address URL in dashboard.

Take a look at your general setting first.

In the image, you see, my site’s address URL is www.web6.org
So in the webmaster tool preferred domain, i choose “Display URLs as www.web6.org”.

After i checked in gerenal setting i prefer whichever matches to the site's URL.

If i would have http://web6.org in my dashboard wordpress general setting, i would choose “Display URLs as web6.org.

Wheww i guess this post is the longest post i have ever wrote, but i hope it will help you to submit your wordpress blog and sitemap.xml file to Google webmaster tool, and get it verified so it’s possible for people to find your posts via Google.

Time to build relevant links for your blog to be displayed in the first pages of Google!

Video Tutorial: