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If you're a webmaster, you may already know the importance of submitting a valid sitemap to top search engines. Here are the guidelines to submit sitemaps to Google, Yahoo, MSN, Ask.com and more!![]()
Sitemaps, typically created as an XML file, define your site's structure. They list all of the contents of your site, in a "tree" directory. The purpose of an XML file is to let search engines know your site's hierarchy - which pages branch off of which other pages, and so forth. The main point is to help search engines understand exactly what your site is about, so that it can properly rank your site in search results.
Google has the nicest sitemap submission method around: it's called Google Webmaster, and it's a fully functional administration panel that you can use to manager all of your sites. There's hardly a webmaster around who doesn't have a Google Webmaster account - it is an invaluable free service that lets you monitor your sites, beyond what Analytics can do for your site statistics.
Submitting a site to Yahoo is identical to that of Google Webmaster, as previously explained. You'll have to create a free Yahoo account, foremost. From there, you can then visit Yahoo Site Explorer - a free user panel that manages your sites and their sitemaps that will be listed on Yahoo's search engine.
Many people are not aware that MSN.com also has its own version of the "Webmaster account" as seen on Google and Yahoo - probably because it is not very easy to find via a search engine search. It's called MSN Webmaster Center, and you can simply add a site URL and path to the XML file. MSN, like Google and Yahoo, also asks you to upload a file for site verification, in which you'll have to copy and paste some code into an XML file, and upload that file to the root directory.
Ask.com's method of sitemap submission is a little more unorthodox to that of other search engines, of whom have their own management account centers. To submit your site's sitemap to Ask.com, simply visit the following URL, and enter your site's URL and location to your "sitemap.xml" file:I hope you've found this sitemap submission guide to be useful! If you'd like to leave any comments, please do so here: