Creating and Submitting a Sitemap for Blogger
Creating and Submitting a Sitemap for Blogger: A Step-by-Step Guide
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Creating and Submitting a Sitemap for Blogger |
Before diving into the how-to, here’s a quick overview: a sitemap is an XML file that lists the URLs on your blog to help search engines crawl and index every page efficiently. Blogger automatically generates two XML feeds—sitemap.xml
(for posts) and sitemap-pages.xml
(for static pages)—but these often omit older or paginated entries. By explicitly generating or customizing your XML sitemap, registering it in your robots.txt
, and submitting it to Google Search Console, you ensure complete coverage and faster indexing of your content.
What Is a Sitemap and Why You Need One
A sitemap is a file that provides search engines with a roadmap of all the URLs on your site, ensuring no important page is overlooked (Google for Developers).
For Blogger, default feeds (Atom or RSS) only include recent posts—an explicit XML sitemap guarantees older posts and pages are discoverable (SEO Neurons).
Sitemap Formats Supported by Google
Google supports several formats (XML, RSS, Atom, text), but XML is preferred for its ability to include metadata like <lastmod>
and <priority>
(Google for Developers).
Size limits apply: a single sitemap can list up to 50,000 URLs or 50 MB uncompressed; larger sites must use multiple sitemaps or a sitemap index (Google for Developers).
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Step 1: Generate Your Blogger XML Sitemap
-
Locate the default feeds:
-
Posts:
https://YOURBLOG.blogspot.com/sitemap.xml
-
Pages:
https://YOURBLOG.blogspot.com/sitemap-pages.xml
(SEO Neurons).
-
-
Use a generator for completeness:
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Go to a free sitemap-generator (e.g., SEO Neurons).
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Enter your blog URL, click Generate, and copy the resulting XML (SEO Neurons).
-
-
Split large sitemaps: If you exceed limits, most tools automatically paginate into multiple files.
Step 2: Add the Sitemap to Your robots.txt
Although Blogger auto-exposes sitemaps, reinforcing via robots.txt
helps all crawlers find them quickly: (support.google.com)
-
In your Blogger dashboard, go to Settings → Crawlers and indexing.
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Enable Custom robots.txt.
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Paste (at minimum):
User-agent: * Disallow: /search Allow: / Sitemap: https://YOURBLOG.blogspot.com/sitemap.xml Sitemap: https://YOURBLOG.blogspot.com/sitemap-pages.xml
-
Save your changes.
Step 3: Submit to Google Search Console
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Open Google Search Console and select your property.
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Navigate to Index → Sitemaps.
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In the Add a new sitemap field, enter
sitemap.xml
(and repeat forsitemap-pages.xml
), then click Submit (Google for Developers). -
Review the Coverage report to ensure Google successfully fetched all URLs.
Verifying and Maintaining Your Sitemap
-
Coverage checks: In Search Console’s Sitemaps report, watch for errors or excluded URLs.
-
Regenerate after major updates: Whenever you add bulk posts, rerun your generator and refresh your
robots.txt
. -
Monitor crawl stats: The Crawl Stats report shows how often Googlebot accesses your sitemap files.
By following these steps—generating a complete XML sitemap, declaring it in robots.txt
, and submitting it to Search Console—you ensure that every corner of your Blogger blog is visible to search engines, leading to faster indexing and better SEO performance.
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