In the previous article I showed how to create a HTML WordPress sitemap that would help your visitors to browse your site and find your previous posts.
In this article I will show how to create a WordPress XML sitemap which will help search engine "spiders" crawl your site so that all of your pages can get indexed.
A WordPress XML sitemap is basically a file that has all of the URL's to all of your pages and posts listed along with some additional data (such as when it was last updated).
This file won't make sense to the average user but makes perfect sense to the search engines and will help your blog to rank with them.
So let's get started.
First, go to your WordPress dashboard and then click on "Add New" under "Plugins".
The plugin we are looking for is "Google XML Sitemaps" by Arne Brachhold.
So search for "Google XML Sitemaps" and it should be the top result.
Click on "Install" on the right hand side and then activate the plugin.
Go back to the Plugins page and look for the newly installed Google XML Sitemaps plugin.
When you have found it, click on the "settings" link.
For most blogger's needs the standard settings will be fine but you can change the settings to what you think will be more suitable for your blog.
You can go to the plugin site for help or do a Google search.
Make sure "Rebuild sitemap if you change the content of your blog" is checked so that it updates automatically.
Once you've chosen your settings click on "Rebuild sitemap" to create your sitemap for the first time.
And that's pretty much it.
The sitemap should be located at yourURL.
com/sitemap.
XML, so to check that your WordPress XML sitemap has been created just go to that address.