Webmaster Tools 101: Adding an XML Sitemap

If you have not created a sitemap.xml, please read our tutorial on creating an XML sitemap.

Go to http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools. Login with your Google Account, or create an account if you do not have one already.

After logging in, add your site’s domain to the list by typing it into the text field and pressing “Add Site”. You will be redirected to the site overview page. Many of the menus and reports are disabled. In order to enable them, you must first verify that you own the domain you just added to the list. To do this, navigate to “Settings” and click on “Verify your site”.

You have two options for verification: “Add a meta tag” and “Upload an HTML file”. Pick whichever is easiest to do for your site. The first involves adding a line of HTML to your home page, which the second one requires that you create a new file and upload it to your site’s root directory. After selecting one from the drop-down, you will be given detailed instructions on how to perform the task. It is a straightforward process, but keep mind that you will need admin access to your web site’s files (e.g. FTP, SFTP, SSH, etc.).
Once you have completed the “Add a meta tag” or “Upload an HTML file” process and the changes have been pushed to your live site, click “Verify”.

If you performed the verification correctly, you should now have access to many more advanced options in the Settings, Diagnostics, Statistics, and Tools menus. Most of these options you do not need to worry about, and are best left at their default values.

Now, go back to Google Webmaster Tools, and navigate to “Sitemaps”. In the text box above the table, complete the URL so it points to the location of your sitemap.xml file (if you put it in your root directory, you will only have to type in “sitemap.xml”). Click “Submit Sitemap”.

Your sitemap’s status should say “Pending”. Google’s bots will now crawl your sitemap.xml file within the next few days, and index all the pages on your site. Once this has happened, its status will change to “OK” or “error”. Under Diagnostics->Web Crawl, you can see if there were any errors crawling or indexing your site, and fix them accordingly.

The Content Analytics report (also under Diagnostics) is another helpful tool for improving your search results.