It is advisable that you submit the updated sitemap to the search engines like Google & Bing to tell them about the updated content, when you publish a new post, or make changes to your site structure which updates the sitemap of your website. In this post, I will show how to ping the sitemap to Search Engines after update the site manually.
If you are running a WordPress site and using plugin like SEO by Yoast, then you don’t need to do this as the plugin will automatically take care of pinging your sitemap to search engines (Google & Bing) after a blog post is published or sitemap is updated.
Ping the Sitemap to Google Search Engine
Google has the highest search traffic and certainly you won’t like to miss telling Google about your updated sitemap. You need to sign-up for Google’s Webmaster tools to have access to richer data and control over how Google crawls your site.
You would need to update Google every time about your sitemap changes, even you have already submitted your sitemap to Google using Google’s webmaster tool.
For example your sitemap is at http://website.com/sitemap.xml use the ping url below for Google to submit your updated Sitemap.
Ping URL for Google
http://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/ping?sitemap=http://website.com/sitemap.xmlYou will receive a message from Google stating that your updated sitemap is received.
Pinging the Sitemap to Bing Search Engine
Bing is still lagging behind Google in search traffic, but it has grown to a significant number and should not be ignored if you value traffic through search. Bing also provides its own Webmaster Tool to gain richer insight of your website’s search traffic through Bing.
If you have already submitted your sitemap to Bing using Bing’s Webmaster tools or via the ping URL, you would need to update Bing every time your sitemap changes.
For example your sitemap is at http://website.com/sitemap.xml use the ping url below for Bing to submit your updated Sitemap.
Ping URL for Bing
http://www.bing.com/webmaster/ping.aspx?siteMap=http://website.com/sitemap.xmlYou will receive a message from Bing stating that your updated sitemap is received.
Whether you are running a blog or maintaining a website which relies on Search Traffic, it is advisable to update search engines about the changes in your site’s structure so that they can begin to crawl the updated URLs as soon as possible. All major search engines provide a way to update them with your website’s sitemap via a Ping URL.
