How to submit your sitemap to Google, Yahoo! and MSN
XML Sitemaps are an easy way for webmasters to inform search engines about the pages on their site that their robots can crawl.
A typical XML sitemap file lists each URL, along with information about when it was last updated, how often it typically changes, and how important it is, relative to other pages on the site. This helps search engines crawl your site more intelligently.
In November 2006, Google, Yahoo! and MSN joined forces to support a new industry standard for sitemaps: Sitemaps 0.90. As long as webmasters follow the protocol, they can ensure that their sites are fully and consistently indexed on all major search engines (a real step up). This article is important for all of you who have missing or misranked pages.
The official site of the joint venture is at sitemaps.org and contains a lot of information about the new standard and its syntax. What the site singularly fails to do is properly explain how to submit your sitemap to the big three! The suggested format on the site of:
currently not working on any of the three sites! Until you do, this short article provides instructions on how to (a) create your sitemap and (b) how to submit it to each of the three major search engines…
Creating your sitemap
Some hosting providers (eg 1and1) provide utilities through their web control panel to create your sitemap, so you should always check with your provider first. If this service is not available, visit xml-sitemaps.com and enter your site’s URL in the generator box. Copy and paste the resulting sitemap into notepad, then save and upload it to your site with the file name: sitemap.xml
If you want to validate the XML before uploading it to search engines (useful if you’ve done manual modifications), look at the XML validator (on the same site) where you can enter your sitemap URL and compare it against the standard.
Send sitemap to MSN
MSN has yet to implement a formal interface for Sitemap submission (as of July 2007). To monitor the situation, visit (from time to time) the official MSN Livesearch blog (where future announcements are likely to be found).
While MSN has yet to implement a front door, there is a recognized back door for submitting your sitemap to the MSN search index; that is, besides.com! You must use the following syntax directly in your browser’s URL box:
Since February 2005, moreover.com has been the official provider of RSS feeds for the myMSN portal (see press release) and reliable evidence suggests that submitting to Plus will result in your pages being crawled by MSN within 2-3 weeks. .
Note that while MSN doesn’t support drop submission yet, they suggest on their blog that you add a reference to your Sitemap in your robots.txt file (something sitemaps.org now supports). For example:
This would tell MSN (and all other engines) to crawl your sitemap file, but not to crawl your cgi-bin directory. For more information on how to implement a robots.txt file (in the root of your site’s web server), visit: http://www.robotstxt.org
Submit sitemap to Google
Google originally developed the XML schema for sitemaps and has developed a dedicated webmaster portal, from where you can submit your sitemap:
First, you need to tell Google all the sites you own, and then verify that you actually own them. Verification is accomplished by adding a meta tag between the main tags on your site’s home page. The tag syntax is as follows:
There are full instructions on how to do this on the Google site.
Submit sitemap to Yahoo
Yahoo follows a similar approach to Google. Again, there is a dedicated service for webmasters (Yahoo! Site Explorer) and a procedure to verify your ownership of the site. First go to:
Add a site, then click the check button. You can then download a verification key html file, which you will need to upload to the root directory of your web server. You can then go back to Site Explorer and tell Yahoo to start the authentication. This will take up to 24 hours. At the same time, you can also add your sitemap by clicking the manage button and then adding the sitemap as a source.
Send sitemap to Ask
Ask follows a simpler approach than the other three. To submit your sitemap, simply enter a ping URL, followed by the full URL where your sitemap is located:
After you click return, you’ll receive a reassuring message from Ask that they’ve received your shipment. Very neat!