Sitemap

[TypiO]

Hello there folks!

I'm very thankful to the people here since there are so many who are kind enough to help, so Thank you!
Sorry, just felt saying that.

But well I have a problem here with my sitemap, or rather I'm getting confused with what I shall link/upload or whatever to google.
Since I read some articles here that said something about linking the url of the sitemap.HTML, I tried that, didn't work due to that it only works for the rootpage and not for following folders where the original sitemap.html is.
So I copied it and put it in the rootfolder as well, but well, no change, I can't link it.
Google tells me that it can't find it and when I try to open the link on my website it doesn't work as well, only through my ftp after putting my account password it shows the html.

So I wonder what I'm doing wrong here. Many thanks in advance!

PS: I just tried to verify my website through html upload, it didn't work either.

[wjcampbe]

You need an XML sitemap for what you are trying to do. There are many programmes available that will create this for you and upload it to the root of your website.

I use GSiteCrawler from SOFTPlus. It will create the sitemap, upload it to your website, and once you have successfully registered with google, it will even send them the notification of upload.

[TypiO]

thank you very much for the help, that wipes some confusions off, but well, tried it, created the xml&uploaded it but google still tells me it can't access the xml.
So maybe there's something wrong with my settings or am I missing something out?


There must be something with the accessibility of my friend's website, cause it doesn't let me verify it nor finds the xml on my website.
Does anybody know why?

Well, miraculously it works now, I don't know what changed.. well, but the verification still doesn't let me pass it.

[wjcampbe]

Wait a couple of days till the sitemap has been accepted, then do the verification by placing an empty html file with the name they give you in the root of the site. (open NotePad, do an an immediate 'Save As' , All Files, filename.html) that will give you a 0 bytes file - which is what they will look for.

You should also check the WebMaster Control Center <g> for information - if something is wrong, G will tell you what it is here.

[TypiO]

Yup, so far, well, G told me, it can't find my sitemap on the location, what is pretty funny cause it accepted it when I submitted it.
So like after half an hour when G accepts the submitting the error comes up that it can't find the Sitemap on the provided URL.

Hm..

[TypiO]

Hello there, still don't have a clue why google doesn't find my data.

Can anyone help me please

[leehack]

Use your browser and try and navigate to the file, if you cannot find it, then neither will Google. If you do manage to find it, then copy the link into here so that we can see where it is. You are clearly either creating the wrong type of file or putting it in the wrong place as literally thousands of people have passed through before you without any trouble at all doing this.

[TypiO]

ftp://ftp.vida-natural.com/sitemap.xml
ftp://ftp.vida-natural.com/sitemap.xml.gz
ftp://ftp.vida-natural.com/sitemap.html


Before you comment it, I know it's the ftp not the www... but don't know how to put it otherwise since it should be the same, at least when I use my ftp-program to login.
If I use the www. path I myself also get a negative reply, so as i said, don't know what I missed out.

[Bruce]

Hi,

I can see your Actinic generated sitemap @ http://www.vida-natural.com/acatalog/sitemap.html, you will have to upload the xml sitemap to the same location.

Kind regards,

[TypiO]

very well! but will this not make google index less than normally?
I wonder, since I tried that before, I mean submitting the url just from the acatalog-subfolder, so it tells me to add that "new" website( the sub-URL)before.
On the other hand it tells me in the first place to put the xml in the very rootdirectory that I have my website on....

Cheers!

[pinbrook]

I can see your Actinic generated sitemap @ http://www.vida-natural.com/acatalog/sitemap.html, you will have to upload the xml sitemap to the same location. this is incorrect, the xml sitemap must be at the root. Bruce is highlighting the actinic generated sitemap which will be within acatalog.

However G can not find your sitemap - assuming you are calling it sitemap.xml because it isn't there

see attached image

[TypiO]

Well the sitemap from actinic I found out before though about that one, I don't know what I can with since G doesn't seem to like a html sitemap.

About that you can't see my sitemap in the www-url, well that I know as well, that was the reason why I showed the ftp-url's cause I couldn't see the sitemap myself with the common www-url.

So my question was: do you know what could be the cause that the sitemap doesn't appear in the www... ? Or do you know what I could do about it?

Cheers!

[Mike Hughes]

I've no idea what your directory structure looks like, but if you want the file to be at www. then you might need to ftp it into a directory that could be called something like httpdocs or www.

ftp into your site and look for your acatalog folder. Is that at the ftp root or do you have to go into a directory to see it?

Mike

[TypiO]

well I use filezilla as my ftp-program, it doesn't make any difference if I type in www. or ftp, I log in the same website when I do.
I mean for instance, when I type in my address: www.vida-natural.com or if I write ftp.vida-natural.com, it doesn't change anything of the appearing of my folders or what I change in either.
I tried logging in both sepparately and changing things, doesn't do anything different.

I don't know if this was clear but I was using ftp right from the beginning when I saw that G didn't like me with the normal actinic html sitemap.

So it's the same structure and the original sitemap is as well, through the ftp-program in www.vida-natural.com/documents/acatalog/sitemap.html
well, and the others in the root, so www.vida-natural.com.

Well, at least they should be...

[pinbrook]

You are clearly confused over ftp and www

Put simply FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol, when we talk about FTP we are refering to transferring files to and from the webserver, here you are using an FTP client (Filezilla) to move files from your PC to the webserver.

So when you log into your site using FTP you are viewing the files on the server (same as using MyComputer on your PC) , if you view the site in a browser using www you are viewing pages.

Use FTP to upload the xml file to the server, put it in the root, if you can see it using Filezilla then so will Google

If you wanted to view the actual webpage type www.domain.co.uk/sitemap.xml into a browser

[TypiO]

well I did put it in the root folder, as well as in the acatalog folder.
and I can submit the sitemap to g, but after half an hour, when G checks the submition, G gives me an error saying that it can't find the sitemap at the provided URL....

thanks for the clarification. but you see that's the funny part, I use my ftpprogram to check my website, and everything is there, then I try my browser and it tells me that there's nothing.
This I tried before as well, I only mentioned the www with ftp before, because i wanted to make clear that I verified that I'm really in the right website, when I login to it, not that I could be in the wrong one anyway^^.

so far..

[leehack]

well I did put it in the root folder, as well as in the acatalog folder.
Clearly you did not, because it would be there if you had. I think you are very confused with what to do here and need to provide some screenshots of the folder structure on your server (so we can help further) or contact someone for some help. This should be an incredibly easy task to do.

You must be putting everything in the wrong place, so forget what you have been trying and try a few other folders if you are going to persist with trying to sort this out yourself.

[wjcampbe]

I verified that I'm really in the right website, when I login to it, not that I could be in the wrong one anyway^^.

so far..
Oh, but you can - in effect - be in the wrong website when you login with ftp.

Most hosts have the ftp root above the publicly visible webspace to stop inexperienced users accidentally publishing content that is not intended to be publicly visible.

These hosts provide a folder called 'public-html' or 'htdocs' or 'httdocs' or just plain 'www' and if your content is not inside that folder it cannot be found by anyone (Google or not) using a browser type address.

You basically have two choices - read enough to understand how ftp/http and the other internet protocols work, or contact one of the people trying to help you on this thread by Private Message, give them an ftp username and password for your site, and let them move the file you have uploaded or upload the file to the correct place for you.

[TypiO]

Thanks wjcampbe! You gave me the right hint. I put the data in the root folder but not in the public one( though I thought I did so), but what I didn't know is that the data appears in the root of the website-url with a browser.

So my riddle is solved cheers!

[wjcampbe]

Fabian,

Glad you got there in the end, and hope this thread can help someone else. Experienced users can easily forget that a complete newcomer can take a while to grasp that ftp root and browser root can be totally different planets.

[v4fun]

You need an XML sitemap for what you are trying to do. There are many programmes available that will create this for you and upload it to the root of your website.

I use GSiteCrawler from SOFTPlus. It will create the sitemap, upload it to your website, and once you have successfully registered with google, it will even send them the notification of upload.


Hello everybody,
Thanks a lot to keep this forum with all this precious info you give. As, I m not computer litterate, could you tell me which directory name should I give this software to upload the xml file?

[v4fun]

The answer was simply:
documents

I managed with the precious help of a friend.

The info on this forum is very helpfull.

Thanks to you all.

[TraceyHand]

Glad you found the answer you were looking for, David.
I think no one stepped in to attempt to answer you simply because the "root" location can vary quite a bit from one host to the other so there is no "one" answer.
Thanks for letting us know you sorted it out :)