A request from every website owner is “Can you list my site on Google?” So, for all you do-it-yourselfers, here’s the easy guide to getting listed on the major search engines including, Google, Windows Live, Yahoo and Ask.
1. First you need to build a sitemap of your site. There are pleanty of free sitemap generators out there. I use xml-sitemaps.com Go here and enter your web address, scroll to the bottom of the page and hit the start button.
Next, download the uncompressed sitemap.xml and then upload that to your site.
2. Go to Google Webmasters Central and sign up for an account. Verify you account by either adding a meta tag or html file (I prefer the html file). Scroll down to the sitemap section and and upload your sitemap. Now scroll down to the tools section and select robots.txt generator. Generate a robots.txt and upload that to the back end of your site as well. Check back to make sure the site has been verified. If so, you’re in. Note however that Google states that it may take time before your site is indexed and it may. So, just because you have now introduced your site to Google, formally, does not mean you will be coming up in search listing later that same day. Quite the opposite. It may take weeks before your site is index and appears in listings.
3. Go to Yahoo Site Explorer and sign up for an account. Add your url then scroll down to authentication and verify your site with Yahoo. Next go to the feeds section and add the path to your sitemap up top. Check back in a few to make sure your site has been verified and your sitemap located.
You can also add your sitemap to Yahoo by copying and pasting the following url into a word editor:
http://search.yahooapis.com/SiteExplorerService/V1/ping?sitemap=
Then add your full url to the end of it. Example: http://www.yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml
Should look like this: http://search.yahooapis.com/SiteExplorerService/V1/ping?sitemap=http://www.yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml with your domain of course.
You will get a notification of successful submission if your sitemap has been successfully added.
4. Go to Windows Live. Create an account and verify the account. Now open up a text editor and past this url in it. http://webmaster.live.com/ping.aspx?siteMap= Next add the full url to your site map to the endo if it. Example: http://www.yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml The end result should look like this:
http://webmaster.live.com/ping.aspx?siteMap= http://www.yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml with your information of course. Now copy that url and pase it onto a new browser window. It should say “thank you for submitting your sitemap”. You can do this anytime you update your site.
5. To submit to Ask simply copy and past this url into a text editor
http://submissions.ask.com/ping?sitemap=http%3A//
Then add your url starting with the www. after it. Example: www.yoursite.com/xml
Should look like this:
http://submissions.ask.com/ping?sitemap=http%3A//www.yoursite.com/xml with your inofrmation of course.
A new page will appear telling you whether your submission was successful.
Note: Each time you make major changes to your site or add pages you should create a new sitemap, upload it to your server and notify all the major search engines of your updated sitemap with the steps above.
Now that you are listed you can use some of the webmaster tools offered by Google, Yahoo and Windows Live to increase your search engine rankings.
I also strongly recommend monitoring your google account on a weekly basis to ensure your site is properly listed and error free.
