When you submit your sitemap to Google and verify your website ownership to them, this allows you to access their various webmaster tools on Google Search Console. These tools allow you to track how your website is performing in search results, which keywords your website appears for, find which websites backlink to yours, and get alerts for broken links on your site.
Part 1: Set up Google Search Console on your website
- Navigate to Google Search Console.
- You will be asked to login or create a Google account (any email address ending in @gmail.com). After you login, you will be taken to Google Search Console.
- When asked to select the property type, choose "URL prefix" and copy and paste the URL of your website's home page, including the https://
- Scroll down and select HTML tag to expand the menu.
-
Copy the code inside the quotation marks as seen below.
- In a new tab, open your Websites app. Open the Settings tab at the top of the page, then select SEO on the left-hand sidebar.
- Scroll down to the Site Verification section, then paste the meta tag into the Google site verification code field (right-click and then paste or CMD-V on Mac & CTRL-V on PC).
- Click the Publish button at the top of your dashboard.
- Return to the Google Search Console tab and click Verify on the screen where you copied the HTML code snippet.
Your website ownership should now be verified for Google. Next, you'll want to submit your sitemap.
Part 2: Submit your sitemap to Google
- From your Google Search Console dashboard, select Indexing > Sitemaps in the left-hand sidebar.
- In the box that says Add a new sitemap, you will notice your website’s URL with an empty text box following it. Type in “sitemap.xml” after the backslash (/).
- Select Submit to finish.
Tip: Any time you make a substantial change to your website content, you can repeat the steps above to re-submit your sitemap. This will allow Google to re-crawl your newly-updated website immediately.
Comments
0 comments
Article is closed for comments.