Using Site Verify and XML Sitemap in Drupal to enhance SEO

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jethro's picture

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) techniques are very important for websites to hit that coveted number number 1 spot on related keyword searches.

With Drupal there are some specific tools that can assist with this. The major Search Engines, (Yahoo, Bing and Google) provide tools to do this and there are some Drupal modules that work with this.

The following process takes you through the entire process - excluding signing up for the accounts at Yahoo, Google and Bing.

Before starting make accounts (or sign in with your existing accounts) to each of these services:

Then make sure you have a current download of these modules:

Copy these up to your sites/all/modules folder and then go to modules in your sitebuilding menu to install them.

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Once installed then configure things in the following order:

Site Configuration | XML Sitemap

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Select the Search Engines Tab

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select all as below

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and click Save Configuration

Select the Settings Tab

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for now just change the minimum sitemap lifetime to 1 day and save

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If you want to improve the sitemap by adding in links for taxonomy or menu related items then you can do that here also:

By clicking on Taxonomy, then opening any vocabulary settings you can choose included in the XML Sitemap settings for that vocabulary.

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Once completed you should rebuild the links even though it says you don't need to.

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Note: your sitemap is at domainname/sitemap.xml

Now in each of the Google, Bing and Yahoo site builder sites add the sitemap as follows:

Bing

click Add Site and add the domain

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Choose option1: Place and XML file on your web server and save the file that is downloaded after clicking BingSiteAuth.xml.

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Don't do anything else here yet! Just leave this tab open.

Go to the Yahoo Sites Explorer and add a site:

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Select the option to upload a verification file to my site and download the authentication key.

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Don't do anything else here yet! Just leave this tab open.

Now go to the Google webmaster tools and add a site.

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Choose the option to upload an HTML file to your server and dwnload the HTML Verification file

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Don't do anything else here yet! Just leave this tab open.

Now go to Site Building | Site Verifications

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Add Verification

Select Bing and Click Next

Click Choose file and locate the file downloaded previously and click Save

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Repeat for Yahoo and Google

All three should now be added.

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Now its time to verify each of them in their own tools websites

Bing first. Click Verify

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Once it has been added there will be no data for at least a day. however we can speed it up by asking it to crawl the site.

Click the Crawl Tab, then Sitemaps from the left hand menu, then Add Sitemap.

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Enter the sitemap address and click Submit. Close the Bing tab now.

Back in the Yahoo sites tab click the ready to Authenticate button.

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click on feeds and add the sitemap as a website feed. then you can close the Yahoo tab.

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In the Google webmaster tools click the Verify Button

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O the left hand side open up Site configuration and click Sitemaps

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Click Submit a Sitemap, enter the address and click Submit Sitemap

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You can close the Google tab now.

Congratulations; your Drupal site is now configured for sitemap indexing and crawling by the search engines everyday.

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G Atkinson's picture

LOL, tsk tsk. You should be

LOL,

tsk tsk. You should be running Pathauto.

g

jethro's picture

lol yes - you set this site

lol yes - you set this site up!

G Atkinson's picture

What???? Spyjournal was

What????

Spyjournal was around long before i started working with you. I don't remember doing any module work on it.

But it would be just like me though, wouldn't it? To forget and then forget that I forgot.

g

jethro's picture

oh i thought you were

oh i thought you were referring to floppy flaps - the site i used in the article
yes spyjournal needs i too - but theres so much inconsistency with urls that i have made myself i dont dare...

John's picture

good point, mate!

good point, mate!

evarsys's picture

Thanks for the information.

Thanks for the information. Really helped me in setting up XML sitemap for Drupal 7.

estate agents dursley's picture

Me too! I was able to follow

Me too! I was able to follow the steps.

GouglasKorti's picture

It is always useful to get

It is always useful to get webmasters tools, it gives you comprehensive analysis of website performance and issues (if any).