A sitemap is a file that provides information about the pages, videos, and other content on your site, helping search engines crawl and index your content more efficiently. Sitemaps tell search engines which pages you consider important and provide valuable metadata such as when pages were last updated.
Accessing Your Sitemap
Uscreen automatically generates a sitemap for your site. You can find this at:
https://yourstorefront.uscreen.io/sitemap.xml
Simply append /sitemap.xml to your storefront's domain.
INFO: The automatically-generated sitemap from Uscreen updates automatically when you add or modify content on your Uscreen site
Submitting Your Sitemap to Search Engines
For better indexing, submit your sitemap to the search engine's webmaster tools.
Google Search Console
Create or log in to your Google Search Console account
Add and verify your website domain
Go to Sitemaps in the left menu
Enter your "sitemap.xml" and click Submit
Bing Webmaster Tools
Sign in to Bing Webmaster Tools
Add and verify your site
Navigate to Configure My Site > Sitemaps
Submit your sitemap URL
Yandex Webmaster
Log in to Yandex Webmaster
Add and verify your site
Submit your sitemap
TIP: While Uscreen automatically generates your sitemap, which cannot be manually edited, you can still create and submit your version. Just make sure to save the file in XML format for search engines to understand.
When to Submit Your Sitemap
You should submit your sitemap:
When your site first goes live
After making significant changes to your content or website layout
NOTE: Indexing times vary, but it typically takes a few days to several weeks, depending on your site's authority and the search engine's crawling schedule. Manually submitting your sitemap for indexing can influence your website's position in their queue, but not always.
Key Considerations
Having a sitemap doesn't guarantee all items will be crawled and indexed, as search engines use complex algorithms to schedule crawling.
In most cases, your site will benefit from having a sitemap, and you'll never be penalized for having one.
If you've geo-blocked your site from certain regions, Google's bots might not be able to index those pages in those regions.
If you want your content to be indexed in countries you've geo-blocked, consider making some content available in those countries.
Program pages may throw errors when indexed as they are behind a paywall and require a user login.