anyone here use wordpress?

FOX · Posted: Fri, 03 Oct 2008 22:05:03 Post Subject: anyone here use wordpress?

so i started a wordpress.org site, got some hosting and am starting to get fairly familiar to run it. Its obviously in its really rough stages at the moment but I want to make sure I get it proper before I get it too involved just to have to redo things.

I mainly have questions around SEO (search engine optimization). I know you need proper titles/ keywords/ link and other items to have search engines look for. What I'm unsure is how to use sitemap.xml files and how to know if its properly being used.

For some stupid reason I signed up with godaddy, mainly cause I had a nice coupon code. I just found through their horrible system how to update the system.xml which i believe is what the search engines look for (right?).

How do I know though if it was done correctly? How do I determine if its properly updated and in the proper folder? GoDaddy says it does it all for me but I really don't trust them.

I have no clue how to run any of this but I'm learning as I go. I just got my adsense approved so I'm going to start plugging that in and this weekend hopefully I'm going to do some reading on how to edit the theme and code some php yay! lol...

www.djsourceinfo.com is the current url I'm probably going to get a better one as time goes, I just wanted to get something going while I was motivated yet.

There's a severe lack of quality dj sites that have news, info, updates and things to that extent so I wanted to take a shot at that. Any help is greatly appreciated, especially helping me find a new domain name Smile

**Doctor Feelgood** · Posted: Sat, 04 Oct 2008 18:01:29 Post Subject:

You can create a sitemap with some 3rd party apps or online (for smaller sites) that make light work of the process. Then you need to keep it updated, so all your new pages are captured, so an app that can run on a schedule is good. And the most important step is to let Google know you have a sitemap and where it can be found.

Make an account for your site with Google's Webmaster tools...

https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/dashboard

The sitemap script I use:

http://www.xml-sitemaps.com/

I have a Wordpress site, but it isn't current... With all that has been developed, I wouldn't be surprised if there are a few sitemap plugins available.

FOX · Posted: Sat, 04 Oct 2008 19:01:25 Post Subject:

thnx for the info! I went there did the verification thing then the next page says that no sitemap has been given to them... I like that because godaddy says one was sent to them and it was successful... yay. so im working on that now

FOX · Posted: Sat, 04 Oct 2008 19:34:47 Post Subject:

i did the website verification thing and thats outta the way but when i try to do the sitemap its still saying theres errors. I'm not sure how to get it updated or anything.

"URL restricted by robots.txt
We encountered an error while trying to access your Sitemap. Please ensure your Sitemap follows our guidelines and can be accessed at the location you provided and then resubmit."

looking online its saying theres 404 errors but i went through everything and i dont tihnk there are... what should I do?

**Doctor Feelgood** · Posted: Sat, 04 Oct 2008 19:38:42 Post Subject:

Google always reports some errors on my sitemap - even though I never see them. Like pages unreachable that are fine, pages that don't exist that do... But, you should make a robots.txt file in your root directory that says at least the following:

User-agent: Mediapartners-Google*

FOX · Posted: Sat, 04 Oct 2008 20:03:13 Post Subject:

thank you... i will try that.

do i need to do anything other than that or just that code?

**Doctor Feelgood** · Posted: Sat, 04 Oct 2008 20:11:02 Post Subject:

You can use it for other things, but presently mine just has that line in it. I used to use it to block other web crawlers that seemed to use too much bandwidth / CPU power with minimal reward.

FOX · Posted: Sat, 04 Oct 2008 20:12:40 Post Subject:

same errors... not sure what to do now haha... i been looking online and cant seem to find anything. The xml website only took the root directory and no tags so im stuck on what to do...

FOX · Posted: Sat, 04 Oct 2008 20:13:35 Post Subject:

ill give ya my username and pw lol....

**Doctor Feelgood** · Posted: Sat, 04 Oct 2008 20:14:41 Post Subject:

Is the sitemap.xml file (or whatever you called it) saved in your root directory, too?