Category: Google


Confused about RSS feeds, what they are, and how to use them? Subscribing to RSS feeds can save you time and energy, so you are notified of updates rather than you having to go search for the updates on your favorite sites and blogs. However, like me I found the whole RSS feeding frenzy thing to be confusing, and I’m sure some of you have as well. I came across this RSS feed video, which I thought was one of the best for making it easy to understand RSS feeds. Plus it also explains the basics of using Google Reader to read the feeds you subscribe to.

I’m sure you’ll find this RSS feed video helpful if you want to learn the basics in an easy-to-understand way! After you finish viewing the information, this is where you can tour Google Reader,  if you prefer to use their reader for your RSS feeds. Speaking of RSS feeds…. Have you signed up to receive LinkandBlog RSS feeds?

Got blog? Using Google tools? Most likely you are making use of Google’s free services such as Google Webmaster Tools. Have you utilized Google Insights for Search? It’s another great tool to use in order to determine both past and upcoming trends, for specific keywords.

If you haven’t given the service a try, head on over to Google Insights for Search program, and you can see for yourself what some of the upcoming searches are for the keywords you’re interested in. Happy blogging! :)

Got blog on Blogger? And, you are using a custom domain; or in other words you have your own domain name registered, and that’s the url where your blog is. Did you set up your sitemap? Yes, you can create a sitemap for your blog on the Blogger platform, on your custom domain. It’s easy to do, so let’s get started!

How to Create a Sitemap for a Custom Domain with Blogger:

  1. Login to your Google Webmaster Tools dashboard (If you’re not registered there, you need to be!) Select the option to “Add a Site” if you did not yet add your blog in Google Webmaster Tools. Complete those steps first.
  2. From your Google Webmaster dashboard, choose the domain you need to create the sitemap for, from the dropdown menu.
  3. Now select, “Site Configuration” and then select “Sitemaps” as shown in the image below.
Google Webmaster Sitemap

Google Webmaster Sitemap

4.  Once you open the “Sitemaps” link you then select the, “Submit a Sitemap” button.

5.  In the url box, add the url shown below in the field following your custom domain, without spaces.

feeds/posts/default?orderby=updated

Your url should end up looking like this, without spaces:

http://www.yourcustomdomain.com/feeds/posts/default?orderby=updated

As soon as you complete the feed url, Google will create your sitemap. You’re done! Don’t be startled if you only have the most recent 26 blog posts in your sitemap. That seems to be the standard for the Blogger custom domain platform sitemap. However, keep in mind that Google also doesn’t index every url submitted in a sitemap. This is normal, so again don’t be alarmed if you don’t see every url indexed when looking at your sitemap results in your Google dashboard.

If someone knows a seo-friendly hack to cause Google to generate a sitemap with more than 26 urls for the Blogger platform, let us know! UPDATED EDIT: Here’s how to submit larger sitemaps for your blog on Blogger.

If you haven’t already done so, use the code above for your first sitemap. Now go back to your sitemap settings (in Google Webmaster dashboard) for the blog you wish to add a larger sitemap for.

Select to “Add a Sitemap” to add additional sitemaps for larger blogs. Here’s the secret codes you need. For a blog with more than 25 urls, but less than 100, you would create your second sitemap like this:

http://yourblogurl/atom.xml?redirect=false&start-index=1&max-results=100

To add more than 100 urls, but less than 200, then add yet another sitemap using this code:

http://yourblogurl/atom.xml?redirect=false&start-index=101&max-results=200

Got even more than 200 posts? Simply continue to add more sitemaps by changing the “101&max-results=200″ accordingly.

There you have it! The easy way to quickly generate a sitemap for your custom domain using the Blogger platform! Once your additional sitemaps have been added in Blogger, and the Googlebot has completed the crawl, you’ll see something like this in your Google Webmaster dashboard:

Once your blog urls exceed the next sitemap level, you’ll begin to see more “indexed url’s”, however again as mentioned above, Google will not show all of your urls indexed for each sitemap you submit. It’s just the way it is, so don’t fret – lol. Special thanks to ampercent, where I found the additional codes for submitting the larger xml sitemaps for blogs with more than 25 urls. :)

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