How do I add a Google Sitemap to my WordPress blog?

[Madtown RM]

My WordPress blog isn't getting crawled. So I want to add a Google sitemap to it. I found some excellent documentation on wordpress.com complete with lots of nice screenprints:

http://techhack4u.wordpress.com/2007...search-easily/

...but the part where it says, "Now copy and paste the meta tag verification code after the template head section..." is driving me bonkers. What template head section?? I cannot find any links on my WordPress backend to any template coding. And I cannot find any documentation on WordPress that explains how to access the template code.

Can anyone help me? I've already spent way too much time on this and probably should have asked for help sooner. Thanks.

[RussReynolds]

My WordPress blog isn't getting crawled. So I want to add a Google sitemap to it. I found some excellent documentation on wordpress.com complete with lots of nice screenprints:

http://techhack4u.wordpress.com/2007...search-easily/

...but the part where it says, "Now copy and paste the meta tag verification code after the template head section..." is driving me bonkers. What template head section?? I cannot find any links on my WordPress backend to any template coding. And I cannot find any documentation on WordPress that explains how to access the template code.

Can anyone help me? I've already spent way too much time on this and probably should have asked for help sooner. Thanks.

Hello,


Sounds like you are doing that the hard way...

There are many plugins in built for this.

Here is one:

http://www.arnebrachhold.de/projects...aps-generator/

download, unzip and upload to your plugins directory, activate and go.

Whenever you want to add something to your blog I recommend looking for a plugin first.

Good luck,

Russ

[Madtown RM]

Wow, who knew?

Thanks, Russ. I will try that.

[RussReynolds]

Plugins are the killer app for wordpress

Definitely makes life easier.

Let me know if you need any help.

Cheers,

Russ

[Madtown RM]

You guys are the best (you gals too, albeit way too few!). I am learning so much on this Forum and can't thank you enough!

[Madtown RM]

Okay, this is getting seriously embarrassing. In the plug-in installation directions it says, "Simply download the Zip-Archive and extract all files into your wp-content/plugins/ directory".

So where the heck is the wp-content/plugins/ directory??

I don't see a folder like that on my computer! And the plug-in doesn't magically appear in my WordPress plug-ins directory when I save the files to my regular plug-ins folder.

What gives? I'm starting to think this really is rocket science. Sheesh.

Anyone?

[RussReynolds]

Okay, this is getting seriously embarrassing. In the plug-in installation directions it says, "Simply download the Zip-Archive and extract all files into your wp-content/plugins/ directory".

So where the heck is the wp-content/plugins/ directory??

I don't see a folder like that on my computer! And the plug-in doesn't magically appear in my WordPress plug-ins directory when I save the files to my regular plug-ins folder.

What gives? I'm starting to think this really is rocket science. Sheesh.

Anyone?

Ok...I shouldn't have assumed you would know how to do this.

It's possible you are not transferring the files right or it is not the right version for your wordpress install.

I would be happy to help if you like, pm me and I can walk you through it. Once you do it once it will be easy for any other plugins.

[jamesww]

You should check out Google XML sitemaps as that is the very best plugin for building a site map for your WP blog. If you make many corrections to your blog after posting it you may have got banned from pinging services. You should look into Max Blog Ping Optimizer it works wonders. You can control how often your site pings.

Oh, and to make it a much more simple process to upload plugins to your site you need to use use the plugin below. It works great I no longer have to do any server work to add plugins. I have heard that some will not work right using it but I have never had a problem.

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/plugin-manager/

[Madtown RM]

Thanks, James. Unfortunately I learned from Russ last night that I set up my blog incorrectly in that I let WP host it so I can't add outside plug-ins (you can only do that with a wordpress.ORG site not a wordpress.com site). That being said, turns out WP automatically generates a sitemap for your blog so I don't need to worry about that. The thing I'm more concerned with now is Google site verification for that blogsite. I managed to create an html page (something they must have started allowing because there are a ton of comments on the support blog saying WP strips out the .html on the filename which it didn't do to me, plus I was able to pull up the page in my browser...). So now I just need to wait 24 hours to see if Google recognizes it and verifies the site (not trying to be negative but I have reason to believe it may not work).

[jamesww]

Go self hosted it is not difficult to set up and what makes WordPress so great is the after market plugins. Eric Bramlett was advertising that he would set WordPress up for you for no cost. If you need a theme let me know I can hook you up since I have the developers pack for Revolution One. AGAIN GO SELF HOSTED YOU WILL FIND IT MUCH MORE BENEFICIAL!