Add a Sitemap file to your Magento store

A Sitemap file, what is it?

The Sitemap is as its name suggests, a plan of your site that contains links to all pages of your site.

For a search engine (Google, Yahoo, VeoSearch ...) without a site visit sitemap return to Paris without a plan!

Ie the robot engine will scan your site with links that are accessible but can not index more pages that will be "hidden". Returning to our example with Paris, you will visit convenient locations, but do not linger in the streets.

We focus more closely on the interests of SiteMap for Magento : if the robot indexes the first page of your site, but only indexes for example, not product pages or category pages, it will be referenced as your page home with your featured products, or your introduction. To the benefit is close to zero.

Therefore it may be interesting to take a few minutes to try to create this sitemap for your Magento store. Indeed you may well have the site e-commerce design most of the world, or with more products, if the client does not find you, he shall not visit your site.
The creation of the sitemap will allow you to optimize the ranking of your Magento store for search engines index all your products.

Create Sitemap file of your shop with Magento

Magento integrates basic, a tool to generate the SiteMap file your e-commerce. We will see how to use it.
Go to the Magento administration panel, then "Catalog> Google Sitemap".

Then click the top right "Add Sitemap".

Then complete the form:
Filename: sitemap.xml
Path: /
View Store: French

In the path (Path), you can specify a folder name to store your Sitemap file eg / plan / (This may also be necessary if you do not have write permission on the root of your Magento store ).

Reminder: If you want to give write permission to the folder containing your sitemap file with Filezilla click the right button on your file, then select "File Attributes" and then check the first checkbox: "Write". Finally, click "Save & Generate".

Your sitemap is created, and is located at http://maboutiquemagento.com/sitemap.xml.

Send your Sitemap file to Magento Google Webmaster Tools

This step requires that you have a Google Account. If you do not have one, you can create it on the same page.
See you on: https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/

You connect, then return the address of your online store and click "Add Site".

Click the name of your site, then in the left menu, select the Sitemaps.

top right, following your web address, enter the name of your xml file. Then click "Submit a Sitemap".

You should now see a confirmation message.

Several hours may elapse before displaying a report in your account on your Google Sitemap.

Problems with Sitemap file generated

Unfortunately, the tool for Magento Sitemap has some shortcomings.
Indeed, it can sometimes create elements inviting the robot to go on a 404 page (not existing).
To resolve this problem, simply edit the sitemap.xml file (with notepad for example), and remove the problematic blocks.
For example: imagine that the report indicates that Google page
"Http://www.maboutiquemagento.com/index.php/htc-touch-diamond.html" does not exist. Edit your sitemap.xml, and find the next block to remove it.

Items on the same subject:

1. Prestashop v1.1: Import entire catalog in your store from a file. Csv (Excel, Calc ...) Feel free to sign up for RSS feeds do not miss any article.Comment import many products, many Prestashop categories in my catalog. Thanks to CSV (Comma Separated Values), you have the ability to import large quantities of ...
2. Guide to improve the SEO of your Magento store Feel free to sign up for RSS feeds do not miss any article.Introduction This guide is a set of good manners and tasks to optimize your Magento store for search engines, and therefore improve your SEO. All ...
3. Magento: Moving your shop on your online server from a local installation Feel free to sign up for RSS feeds do not miss any article.Dans our previous tutorial we showed you how to install Magento on your computer using xampp, we'll explain how to transfer your shop here on a ...