Webmaster Tools
All three major search engines provide webmaster tools that give you detailed information and statistics about how they see and crawl your website. In order to access most of the features, you will have to verify your sites. Here’s how you do it with each of the search engines:
Google Webmaster Tools
- Log in to https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/ with your Google account.
- Enter your blog URL and click
Add Site. - You will be presented with several verification methods. Choose
Meta Tag. - Copy the meta tag, which looks something like
- Leave the verification page open and go to your blog dashboard.
- Open the Tools Page and paste the code in the appropriate field.
- Click on
Save Changes. - Go back to the verification page and click
Verify.
Yahoo Site Explorer
- Log in to https://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/ with your Yahoo account.
- Enter your blog URL and click
Add My Site. - You will be presented with several authentication methods. Choose
By adding a META tag to my home page.. - Copy the meta tag, which looks something like
- Leave the verification page open and go to your blog dashboard.
- Open the Tools Page and paste the code in the appropriate field.
- Click on
Save Changes. - Go back to the verification page and click
Ready to Authenticate.
Note: It may take up to 24 hours for your site to be authenticated.
Bing Webmaster Center
- Log in to http://www.bing.com/webmaster with your Live! account.
- Click
Add a Site. - Enter your blog URL and click
Submit. - Copy the meta tag from the text area at the bottom. It looks something like
- Leave the verification page open and go to your blog dashboard.
- Open the Tools Page and paste the code in the appropriate field.
- Click on
Save Changes. - Go back to the verification page and click
Return to the Site li
*Submit Sitemaps
When it comes to sitemaps, there are three basic types.Create a Site Index
If you would like to create a site index, you can follow these steps:
- If you don’t have CATEGORIES included in your sidebar, go to your Sidebar Widgets editor and include it.
- Open a page of your blog up so that you can see the CATEGORIES sidebar with all the categories listed.
- Carefully highlight all of the categories in the CATEGORIES box and copy them to the clipboard.
- Press CTRL-C for PC.
- Press CMD-C for Mac.
- Open the Manage Pages part of your Dashboard and create a new page.
- Paste the contents of the clipboard into the editor.
- Press CTRL-V for PC.
- Press CMD-V for Mac.
- Edit the list as you see fit.
- Remove extraneous categories like “Uncategorized.”
- Create a “Recommended” or “Most Popular” list of categories above or in place of the alphabetized list.
- Add static, descriptive text before or after the list.
- Bold certain categories to make them stand out.
- Name the page and save it.
- If you don’t want to have a separate sidebar listing of categories, go back and remove the CATEGORIES Sidebar Widget.
Don’t forget that pages created in this way are NOT self-updating like the CATEGORIES widget in the sidebar. You’ll have to redo the entire process every time you add a new category to any post, or you’ll have to learn how to edit the page yourself to add the category and the link.
XML Sitemaps for Search Engines
Your blog is enabled with just about everything you need to be super-searchable. This includes an XML sitemap, which you can access at yourblogname.wordpress.com/sitemap.xml.
No need to do anything extra on your end. The sitemap file included with your blog is available to every search engine that supports the protocol, including Google, Yahoo!, Bing, Ask.com, and others. WordPress.com automatically sends updates to search engines every time you update or delete a page or post. If you would like to learn more about the protocol, visit sitemaps.org.
News Sitemaps
News Sitemaps are very similar to standard XML sitemaps for search engines, but they are specific to Google News. Publishers must be pre-approved for Google News before Google will index a news sitemap. News sitemaps include only posts published in the last 48 hours.
Your blog already has a news sitemap generated at yourblogname.wordpress.com/news-sitemap.xml. Approved publishers must log in to Google Webmaster Tools and add their news sitemap location as another sitemap.
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