How to create a sitemap on Blogger and submit it to Google

What is a sitemap

A sitemap is simply a directory of all the pages existing on your site, like a table of contents showing the structure of your blog. Sitemaps help search engines crawl your site and index it properly. Search engines will crawl your site if you have a sitemap or not, but this makes the process easier and quicker for them. We want search engine spiders to know your blogs structure so that they can easily understand and index it.

Step 1 – The New Blogger Sitemap

Google now automatically create a sitemap for your Blogger blog in your root directory. This makes the process a whole lot easier, all you have to do now is submit your sitemap to Google and Bing Webmaster Tools. The sitemap is available at the following URLs.

Blogger – Default URL
http://blogname.blogspot.com/sitemap.xml

or

Blogger – Custom URL
http://www.blogname.com/sitemap.xml

This new default sitemap is automatically added to the default robots.txt file, so you don’t have to create a custom one. making the process a lot easier. The sitemap file also contains links to pages like http://blogname.blogspot.com/sitemap.xml?page=1.
Step 2 – Adding Blogger Sitemap to Google and Bing Webmaster Tools

Now login to Google Webmaster Tools. Add or select your blog. On the left click Crawl > Sitemaps > Add/Test Sitemap.

You’ll see your blog name and a text input box. Paste sitemap.xml in the field and test for errors. Once the test results come back okay, redo the steps but this time press submit.

Adding Blogger Sitemap to Google and Bing Webmaster Tools

Google will now start to crawl and index your site. You can check what pages have been indexed on the Webmaster Tools. To submit your sitemap to Bing, login to Bings Webmaster Tools, add your URL, verify ownership and then submit your sitemap. It may take a few days for your site to be indexed.