Overview
What is a sitemap? It is pretty much what the name suggests: a map of all the pages on your site which Google and other search engines can use to get a better understanding of the content on your site, in order to index it better and make it more easily available in search results.
Any website created should have a sitemap that goes along with it, and sites on Art Storefronts are no different. These sitemaps are important because they assist Google in crawling your website. This means that when you submit your sitemap, you are letting Google know that your site is ready for review and ready to start being added to the stack. As important as this step is, make sure you have also added any SEO information you are setting up on your site so when Google indexes your pages, they are ready to go with all of your important SEO information.
For more information about what a sitemap is, you may find this Google support article relevant: Learn about sitemaps.
Please Note: While Art Storefronts generates a new and updated sitemap every Sunday, this will not automatically apply to Google. First, you must submit your sitemap. Once this is done, ASF will generate the site map every Sunday and attempt to update it for you. It can take 4 days to 4 weeks or even longer for Google to crawl and index your site after you submit the sitemap. Art Storefronts has no control over this, and cannot change this timeframe. If you haven't added a sitemap to your site, please learn how here: How To: Add a Sitemap to the Google Search Console
Important Note: Your sitemap will take a couple of days to generate after the DNS has been updated with your custom domain pointing to Art Storefronts. If you do not see your Sitemap by the Sunday following your DNS change, please submit a ticket to let us know.
If you’d like to learn how to add a sitemap to the Google Search Console, please follow the directions below.
Logging into Google Console. Open your internet browser and navigate to the Google Search Console and login to the E-mail Address you are using for your Google account, enter your password, and click on Next
Choose your preferred domain. In this case, it’ll be the one added to your Art Storefronts
Navigate to the Sitemaps option on the left-hand side of your screen
Click on the sitemap record that is currently set up in Google Console
On the top right-hand side, there are three gears that show the option for you to remove the current sitemap record.
After you have successfully removed the current sitemap record, it’s time for us to add a new record. Please enter a new sitemap record as advised here:
After entering the URL, click on submit and the Google Console interface will prompt you that the sitemap has been submitted.
