With a little effort, you can create a Sitemap for your site to help boost your chances of appearing in search engines.

(Note that if you're using Site Solution to build and manage your web site, you don't need to make your own Sitemap — we'll do all the work for you! Learn more about Site Solution Sitemaps.)

To set up a Sitemap for your site, you'll need to complete three steps:

1. Create the Sitemap file.
2. Save your Sitemap in your site's main (root) directory.
3. Submit your Sitemap to search engines.

Note: We do not recommend submitting a Sitemap if your domain is pending. You'll want to wait to submit your Sitemap until your published web site appears at your personalized domain.

To set up a basic Sitemap:

1. Open a new document in a plain-text editor on your computer. On a PC, you can try Notepad; Mac users might work with TextEdit.
2. Copy and paste the template below into your document:

   <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
   <urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9">
   
   <url>
   <loc>http://www.widgetdesigns.com/</loc>
   </url>
   <url>
   <loc>http://www.widgetdesigns.com/about_us</loc>
   </url>
   <url>
   <loc>http://www.widgetdesigns.com/services</loc>
   </url>
   <url>
   <loc>http://www.widgetdesigns.com/contact_us</loc>
   </url>
   
   </urlset>

   This template includes the basic information required in every Sitemap. Sitemaps may also include optional information such as the date a page was last changed or the page's priority. For more on optional details, please see the Sitemaps.org protocol page.
3. Replace the widgetdesigns.com web addresses in the template with the web addresses of your own pages. (To find your web addresses, just visit your published site, click on each page, and look in the address bar of your browser.)
   
   If you have more than four pages, just copy a url section of the template and paste it below the last url section on your list to make room for each additional web address (see the example marked in red below).

   <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
   <urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9">
   
   <url>
   <loc>http://www.learn2yoga.com/</loc>
   </url>
   <url>
   <loc>http://www.learn2yoga.com/about</loc>
   </url>
   <url>
   <loc>http://www.learn2yoga.com/services</loc>
   </url>
   <url>
   <loc>http://www.learn2yoga.com/contact</loc>
   </url>
   <url>
   <loc>http://www.learn2yoga.com/anotherpage</loc>
   </url>
   
   </urlset>

4. You must save your file as an XML document, which means that instead of ending with the letters .txt, the file should end with .xml. To save your file, choose the Save as... option from your editor's File menu. Name the file sitemap.xml. If you have the option to choose the type and encoding, choose All Files (or XML) and UTF-8, then click Save (you can save the file anywhere on your computer).

   

5. Now upload your file to your Web Hosting account. Save the file to your main (root) directory. In the example above, you'd upload your sitemap.xml file to the main learn2yoga folder.
6. With your Sitemap saved in your account, you're ready to submit the file to search engines. Submitting your Sitemap (such as http://www.learn2yoga.com/sitemap.xml) simply tells the search engines where your Sitemap is located.
   
   The search engines' submission methods vary:

   Yahoo!: Enter your Sitemap address in the "Submit Site Feed" section of the "Submit Your Site" page.

   Google: Add your site, then submit your Sitemap (learn how on Google's web site).

   Ask: Copy the following URL into your browser, replacing widgetdesigns.com with your own domain name, then click Enter or Return on your keyboard to submit your Sitemap (you'll see a message in your browser when the submission is complete):
   
   http://submissions.ask.com/ping?sitemap=http%3A//widgetdesigns.com/sitemap.xml

   Moreover (MSN): Copy the following URL into your browser, replacing widgetdesigns.com with your own domain name, then click Enter or Return on your keyboard to submit your Sitemap (you'll see a message in your browser when the submission is complete):
   
   http://api.moreover.com/ping?u=http://widgetdesigns.com/sitemap.xml

Congratulations! You have submitted your basic Sitemap.

Tip: When your site changes, you'll want to update and resubmit your Sitemap. You can resubmit using one of the methods above or set up a robots.txt file to point search engines in the right direction (see below).

Additional Details

For more information about Sitemaps, please visit Sitemaps.org, which describes in detail the common Sitemap protocol adopted by all major search engines (including Yahoo! and Google).

Sitemap web address formats:
If any of your web addresses include nonstandard characters, such as ampersands (&), you will need to replace those characters in your Sitemap with special codes called entity escape codes. You'll need to replace the & symbol, for example, with the code &amp;. Non-ASCII characters (generally any character you can't type with one button on your keyboard) also require special coding.

Most customers don't need to worry about special codes, but if your site includes a blog or certain kinds of PHP pages, for example, you may need to modify some of your web addresses. Learn more about entity escaping on Sitemaps.org.

Sitemap submission:
The Sitemaps.org protocol includes two other options for submitting your Sitemap, such as creating a robots.txt file for your site. See Sitemaps.org for more on submitting your Sitemap, or check the search engines' own documentation for more information.

Hint: If you create your site with our Site Solution tool, we'll set up a robots.txt file for you!

Generators and validators:
Several web sites also offer free and inexpensive Sitemap generators and validators. Check the Web for more information.