Step 2: Submit Your Sitemap to Google

To submit your sitemap:

1. Go to Google Webmaster Tools and do one of the following:
   
   • Log in to your existing account.
   • Create a new account, and log in.
2. Click the Add a Site button.

Add a Site
3. When prompted to enter your store address, do one of the following:
   
   • If your store has a custom domain (mystore.com), enter the full URL (http://www.mystore.com) as your store address.
   • If your store uses the shared domain (gostorego.com), enter the full URL (http://mystore.gostorego.com) as your store address.
   Then, click Continue.
4. To verify that you are the owner of the site, click the Alternate Methods tab. Then, choose one of the following methods:
   
   • Add a DNS record to your domain’s configuration
   • Add a meta tag to your site’s home page
5. To verify your site with using a meta tag, do the following:
   
   1. Open two tabs on your browser; one for Google Webmaster Central, and the other that is logged in to the Admin panel of your store.
   2. Follow the instructions on Webmaster Central to copy the full text of the Google site verification meta tag.
   3. From the Admin panel of your store, go to System > Configuration. In the Configuration panel on the left, under General, click Design.
   4. In the HTML Head section, scroll down to Miscellaneous Scripts, and paste the Google site verification meta tag.  Then, click the Save Config button.
   5. Return to Google Webmaster Central, and click the Verify button.
   
   Google Site Verification
   6. After your site is verified and appears in your Google dashboard, do the following:
      
      1. Click the name of your store. Then, click the Sitemaps button.
      2. In the upper-right corner, click the Add/Test Sitemap button.
   7. Return to the Admin panel of your store, and copy the path to your Google sitemap.  If necessary, log back in and do the following:
      
      1. Go to Catalog > Google Sitemap.
      2. In the Link for Google column, right-click the link to your sitemap. Then on the context menu, click Copy Shortcut.
      3. Open a text editor and paste the link. Then, copy only the part that comes after the “dot com.” It should look like this:
         /media/s4d71280645299/sitemaps/sitemap.xml

   8. Return to Google Webmaster Tools and paste the text into the box to complete the address of your sitemap. Then, click the Submit Sitemap button.
   
   Submit Google Sitemap
   9. Make sure that the link to your sitemap is working correctly, and that your Google dashboard shows the number of pages indexed.
   10. You can now restore your robots.txt file to exclude certain locations of your site, as needed.  To learn more, see: “Using a Robots.txt File.”
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   “Setting Up Google Sitemap”

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