homestead_faq's profileBrand User

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Tuesday, October 16th, 2012 9:22 PM

Sitebuilder Plus: Sitemap

Sitebuilder Plus: Sitemap
Here are some instructions to create and add a sitemap to your website.

  1. Go to http://www.xml-sitemaps.com/.

  2. Scroll to the bottom and enter your domain name at the Starting URL section.

  3. Click the Start Button (don't worry about the information between your domain and the start button).

  4. After the website refreshes, you'll get a message that your sitemap is ready. Click the 1st link under the Download Sitemap section.




  5. Save the xml file to your desktop.

  6. Go back to or sign in to your website account.

  7. Click Websites Manager in the left navigation menu. Then, click Edit Site.




  8. Click your domain name or sitename at the top and select View File Manager from the drop-down menu.




  9. At the top, click Import and upload the sitemap.xml file that you saved to your computer.


  10. In the file manager, find the sitemap.xml file. Right click on the file, then select Publish.


Note:
To help get your website indexed faster, we recommend that you setup Google Webmaster Tools. This is a free software that Google offer and gives great insight into your website's visibility online. You can also upload your sitemap into their tool to keep track on how many of your pages have been indexed.

7 Messages

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200 Points

4 years ago

This reply was created from a merged topic originally titled Can anyone help me make a sitemap?.

Can anyone help me make a sitemap?  I don't understand the process. I read that Homestead automatically makes a sitemap, but I cannot confirm that.

7 Messages

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200 Points

4 years ago

How do you know if you were successful? I am a complete newby and it says published under my files, but shouldn't I be able to access it on my website?
Please excuse my ignorance.

21 Messages

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502 Points

2 years ago

21 Messages

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502 Points

@peggy1878

Hi  PeggyPenny,

Elyzabeth V replied on a comment of a post you are following
Above is a cut and paste of the inside of my homestead account "getting started" page showing that the program is called WebsiteBuilder.
I see nothing that says I am in homestead PLUS.   
How did you determine that I am using Plus?  I'm not trying to argue, I just do not see anyplace that says PLUS inside the program account.  
I just spoke with tech support at homestead.  They transferred me to SEO to have me pay to index on Google.  I was on the phone 25 minutes and got nowhere closer to having the feature sitemap and submitting to Google working.
I was told that homestead is outdated since 3 years ago went to mobile and so now many of the features are outdated from functioning.  They will be e mailed me in 24 hours with a resolve.
Thank you for your help.  I really appreciate your time.  Creating my sitemap isn't a problem, the problem is that it does not submit to google.  If I create the site map, how do I then submit it to google without homestead's feature?
Peggy
Brand User

10.6K Messages

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141.7K Points

Hi Peggy, 

Those links are the same in every Homestead customers account, whether they are using WebsiteBuilder or not. You said your domain was forwarding to https://www.peggypenny.homestead.com/index.html  
Sites that end in .homestead.com are Sitebuilder Plus sites. When you log into the builder for that site, it will go to a sitebuilder.homestead.com URL and it will say Sitebuilder Plus in the tab:




For sites built in SB+, you would need to create the sitemap manually. You can certainly pay for SEO or you could just follow these instructions to create the sitemap on your end. 

They are correct that Sitebuilder Plus is outdated. We've been trying to get all SB+ customers to switch to WebsiteBuilder for about 5 years. I would highly recommend you rebuild this site through WebsiteBuilder. You would just need to create a new site and start rebuilding. It will automatically be in WebsiteBuilder. 

21 Messages

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502 Points

I created a sitemap and added it onto my website and right clicked and published it.

It has been 2 weeks.  Absolutely no sign that my site ranking has changed.

I have no idea how to see which program I am using but I downloaded

what is says, Download SiteBuilder (<cut and paste) and it's the same program

that I am using.  Click here to download

the .zip SiteBuilder installation package. (<cut and paste)

is this the right program?  and how is this going to help improve the SEO that I paid to have on my program?  

21 Messages

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502 Points

just called support and was told now another new information.

I am using the program on the homestead site live, then I am told it is not

homestead plus but the updated program. 

So, I'm not using homestead plus which appears on the top tab of my page when working on the program.

She went into my site and said that if I am working on the homestead site,

it's the new program not plus when online live publishing.

I was told my site map is okay, but I have to own the domain name, which I do.

I own all the domain names to every site on homestead.

Now, I am told to change the DNS to mds ...  on three different servers 1-3.

And this should work in 24 hours godaddy real time updating.

This is different DNS changes then what google 'how to' page tells me to point towards.  Google tells me to point to google, which sounds more reasonable

then pointing to homestead, to be redirected to google.

I have been using homestead for 20 years.  Years ago, sitemap was simple put onto and into your file manager automatically.  I never had to produce a site map or change a DNS server to point anywhere.  My sites were ranked 1st for years without any of this trouble.

Peggy 

Brand User

10.6K Messages

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141.7K Points

Looking at the notes for that call, it makes sense. It sounds like you were pointing your domain to the theworldpeaceshow.homestead.com site name instead of actually pointing your domain to the site so it pulls the site up under your domain name directly. 
.homestead.com site names used to be crawled by Google, but no longer are. This is why you would have seen a drop in traffic and search engine results. Pointing your domain directly should definitely help.