Joomla Tutorials

Create a Joomla Sitemap for Google, Bing, Yahoo

January 10, 2010 | Written by Rod Martin

Why Add a Sitemap?

I'll be honest and say that I don't believe sitemaps improve your ranking in search engines. However, they do make sure more pages get indexed and that they get indexed more quickly. This article presents evidence that the difference is astounding:

  • Google with a sitemap: 14 minutes
  • Google without a sitemap: 1375 minutes
  • Yahoo with a sitemap: 245 minutes
  • Yahoo without a sitemap: 1773 minutes

Creating the Sitemap

  • Step 1: Go to the Sitemaps section on Joomla.org.
  • Step 2: Download one of these components: Joomap, XMap or SEF Service Map. They are all good solutions. Our how-to here will focus on XMap.
  • Step 3: In your admininstrator area, go to Extensions >> Install / Uninstall and install Xmap via Joomla's installer.
  • Step 4: Go to Components >> XMap. You should see a page with three tabs "Sitemaps", "CSS" and "Extensions" plus a layout like this:

    Xmap Layout

    • Step 5: Click "Add Menus" and select all the menus that you want search engines to find. Private menus shouldn't be included.
    • Step 6: Click the "Options" tab in the top-right, then click "Preferences". A pop-up will appear.
    • Step 7: You'll see a variety of different options for your sitemap. We recommend the following: "Include link to author: No" and also "Use Cache: Yes. Click Save.
    XMap Popup

    Allowing Search Engines to Find Your Sitemap

    • Step 8: From the XMap popup, take the URL from the "XML Sitemap" field. Copy and paste or save it into a text editor.
    • Step 9: Login to your Google Webmaster Tools account: http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/
    • Step 10: Click "Sitemaps" and enter the URL for your XML Sitemap. It might take several hours or evey days for Google to pick up this sitemap.
    • Step 11: Go to https://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/submit and submit the same XML version of your sitemap.
    • Step 11: Go back to the administrator area of your Joomla site.
    • Step 12: Go to Menus and find the menu that appears at the bottom of your Joomla template. Often this will be in "Footer" position and contains your copyright information, privacy policy etc.
    • Step 13: Click "New" and choose "XMap" and save. This will create a link to the HTML version of your sitemap.

     

     


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    Comments 

     
    # frank 2011-02-04 17:37
    Where is bing in there ? bing won't allow you to use any files.. it probably looks for sitemap.xml.. wich xmap doesnt give

    www.bing.com/webmaster#
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    # iowawebco 2011-02-05 23:07
    Hi Frank,

    It's the same general process for Bing :-)

    Kind regards,
    Nick
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    # frank 2011-02-07 09:25
    YAHOO GIVES THIS :

    ERROR: FF_30000 “Not an accepted feed format file. Please consult the documentaiton for supported file formats.” - 02/04/2011 UTC

    AND
    www.bing.com/webmaster/

    won't specify the url or filename...
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    # iowawebco 2011-02-08 04:23
    Hi Frank,

    You can see what the URL to your XML sitemap is in your Xmap preferences. In the backend, go to Components -> Xmap and select preferences at the Options menu, in the upper-right corner of the site map.

    Kind regards,
    Nick
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    # frank 2011-02-09 09:58
    Quoting iowawebco:
    Hi Frank,

    You can see what the URL to your XML sitemap is in your Xmap preferences. In the backend, go to Components -> Xmap and select preferences at the Options menu, in the upper-right corner of the site map.

    Kind regards,
    Nick



    YES but why can't i just have sitemap.xml instead of the full url it generates. ? bin doesnt like it
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    # iowawebco 2011-02-09 14:44
    Hi Frank,

    That's just part of Bing's procedure, I guess.

    Kind regards,
    Nick
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    # Anandraj 2012-01-09 00:20
    thanks for the extremely useful tip.. i have foolowed ur instructions and added my sitemap and sent it to google as well.. thanks again..
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    # iowawebco 2012-01-12 01:52
    You're very welcome, Anandraj! :)

    We have a lot more great tutorials in our classes which are available to students if you're interested (www.ostraining.com/online)

    Kind regards,
    Nick
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    # leny 2012-01-26 17:48
    how about excluding of category/articles. only menus
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    # iowawebco 2012-01-30 16:36
    Hi and welcome, Leny!

    That's a good question! We would love to get into a discussion with you on this. If you are a student at OSTraining.com, please log into the support forum (www.ostraining.com/.../) and post the question in there, so that one of our support techs can look into it for you. If you’re not a student, I hope you’ll consider becoming one, so that we can give you the attention you deserve. You can find out more about our online class at www.ostraining.com/online

    Kind regards,
    Nick
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    # Leo 2012-02-10 06:30
    Hi Rod,
    thank you very much for this easy "how to" article about sitemaps. I just did everything as you wrote, but when I test the address on my webtools for developers on google I get this message: This page contains the following errors:
    error on line 1 at column 6: XML declaration allowed only at the start of the document
    Below is a rendering of the page up to the first error.

    And nothing else. Does is says anything to you? I'm gong through all these tutorials on the net mainly because my website got a wrong description on google. Although the addrss is correct, the descritpion of my site has been changed to some Viagra crap :(
    Thans in advance Rob!
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