When first setting up your Google Sitemap, you must provide full access for Google to index your site. If you have a robots.txt file, make sure that it includes the following instruction:

• User-agent:* Disallow:

After your sitemap has been successfully submitted to Google, you can restore any instructions to exclude certain locations of your site. If you have not yet set up a robots.txt file, you can do so after you finish the sitemap.

1.

On the Admin menu, select Catalog > Google Sitemap.

2.

In the upper-right corner, click the Add Sitemap button. Then, do the following:

a.

In the Filename field, enter: “sitemap.xml”

b.

Enter the path to a writable location on your server for the sitemap.

• To put the sitemap in a folder, enter the path to the folder:
  /sitemaps
• To put the sitemap at the base path of your store, enter a forward slash: /

c.

Set Store View to the view where the sitemap will be used.

3.

Click the Save & Generate button to create the sitemap.

The sitemap appears in the list, with a link to sitemap.xml file. From here, you can do the following:

• To view the sitemap, click the hyperlink in the Link for Google column. This is the link that you will later submit to Google.
• To update the sitemap, click the Generate link.

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.

3.

When prompted to enter your store address, enter the full URL of your store, such as: http://www.mystore.com

Then, click the Continue button.

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

To verify your site with a meta tag, do the following:

a.

Open two tabs on your browser; one for Google Webmaster Central, and the other that is logged in to the Admin of your store.

b.

Follow the instructions on Webmaster Central to copy the full text of the Google site verification meta tag.

c.

On the Admin menu, select System > Configuration. In the Configuration panel on the left, under General, click Design.

d.

In the HTML Head section, scroll down to Miscellaneous Scripts and paste the site verification meta tag. Then, click the Save Config button.

e.

Return to Google Webmaster Central, and click Verify.

5.

After your site is verified and appears in your Google dashboard, do the following:

a.

Click the name of your store. Then, click the Sitemaps button.

b.

In the upper-right corner, click the Add/Test Sitemap button.

6.

Return to your store Admin, and copy the path to your Google sitemap. If necessary, log back in and do the following:

a.

Go to Catalog > Google Sitemap.

b.

In the Link for Google column, right-click the link to your sitemap. Then on the context menu, click Copy Shortcut.

c.

Open a text editor and paste the link. Then, copy the part of the link that comes after the “dot com.” It looks like this:

• /media/s4d71280645299/sitemaps/sitemap.xml

7.

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.

8.

Make sure that the link to your sitemap is working correctly, and that your Google dashboard shows the number of pages indexed.

If you changed your robots.txt file to make it fully accessible, you can now restore the previous instructions to disallow access to certain areas of your site.