What is sitemap ?
A sitemap is a file that lists all the pages of a website. It's used to inform search engines about the organization of a website's content and can help search engines to more intelligently crawl a site. Sitemaps are particularly useful for websites with dynamic content or an extensive archive of content. They can also be used to provide metadata about specific pages, such as when they were last updated. Sitemaps are typically written in XML format, hence the .xml file extension.
A sitemap.xml file can include a number of features that can help search engines understand and crawl a website's content more effectively. Some of these features include:
- URLs: The most basic feature of a sitemap is a list of all the URLs on a website. This allows search engines to find and crawl pages that might not be easily discoverable through traditional crawling methods.
- Last Modified Date: A sitemap can include the last modified date of each URL, which can help search engines determine how frequently they should crawl the page.
- Priority: A sitemap can assign a priority to each URL, which can help search engines understand which pages are more important and should be crawled more frequently.
- Change Frequency: A sitemap can indicate how frequently a page is expected to change, which can help search engines determine how often they should crawl the page.
- Alternate Language: A sitemap can also include alternate languages for each page, which can help search engines understand when a page is available in multiple languages.
- Images and Videos: Some sitemaps also include metadata for images and videos, which can help search engines understand the content and context of these media types.
Overall, sitemap.xml is a good way to communicate with search engines about your website's structure, content and the way you want them to be indexed.
Enabling Sitemap with blogger
By default, sitemap.xml is enabled on blogger websites. You can find your sitemap.xml by using /sitemap.xml after your domain, like https://bloggerwarriors.blogspot.com/sitemap.xml
What is Google Search Console ?
Google Search Console is a web service that lets webmasters check their websites' indexing status, search queries, crawling errors, and visibility. The service was known as Google Webmaster Tools up until May 20, 2015.
Google Search Console integration for your blogger website
- Sign in to the Google Search Console.
- Click on "Add property" from the search box.
- Enter the URL of the blogger's website.
- Verify the ownership of the blogger website.
- In the Sitemap section, enter the URL for Sitemap.xml.
Once the sitemap.xml is added to Google Search Console, it will attempt to retrieve all of the blogger website pages and posts, and the output may look like this.
