iWeb FAQ - Show up in Google
iWebFAQ.org
How can I get my iWeb created (and non iWeb created) website to show up on google? And what about Meta-Tags? (MobileMe)
Please note that this is different from having a google search box on your site and to have it searching within you website. For that have a look at this page instead.
This page is about MobileMe. If you don’t publish to MobileMe click here.
CHAPTER 1: Applications
CHAPTER 2: Manually going through the process step by step
Note 1: About meta-tags and search engine optimization
Note 2: Google and domain masking
Note 3: “I have now been told that the iWeb sites are based on images, not text, hence they won't show up on a Google search. help!”
CHAPTER 1: Applications
If you don't want to go through all the steps there are two applications you could use:
1. iMap ( for 7.99 € ) 
iMap is an application made by Guimkie which is really easy to use but also a bit limited since it works only with iWeb made websites. To get iMap click here.
2. Rage Sitemap Automator ( 29.99 $ ) 
Rage Sitemap Automator is an application made by Rage. It’s more expansive than iMap but it is less limited as well. It will produce your sitemap, upload it and verify it with Google, Yahoo and Ask.com. In addition to that it is really fast and the good thing about it is that you can use it for non-iWeb created websites too (MediaWiki, Wordpress Blogs, Dreamweaver, or whatever). So it’s certainly worth the money. It’s also recommend if you have multiple websites. To get Rage Sitemap Automator click here.
If you don’t want to pay for that then go through the following steps...
CHAPTER 2: Manually going through the process step by step
If you have multiple Sites published to the same MobileMe account also read magenta
Please note that in the whole process whenever asked for a URL you have to give Google. Your personal domain http://www.yourdomain.com using CNAME if you have one. If not submit http://web.me.com/username/
If your personal domain doesn’t use CNAME submit http://web.me.com/username/ and not your registered domain name (Read Note 2 at the end of the page to know why)
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1) Submit your URL going to addurl
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2) Register here to register to the Google Webmaster Tools.
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3) Before creating a Sitemap of your site there is a problem: The Navigation Bar of iWeb ‘08 is Javascript rendering so Google and other search engines (and applications for making Sitemaps) can’t look it through and don’t see what pages your website contains. The solution is to put a second Navbar on the bottom of the page made by your own, that’s how: create a text field, make normal text links to the pages included in the Navbar and you’re done (you can see an example of it at the bottom of this page). The search engines will now follow those links. Best is to make it once and then copy and paste it to the other pages included in the navbar. However you don’t have to put it on all your pages. Add it to the first page of your website.
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4) Now create a sitemap http://www.xml-sitemaps.com/
-Put your base URL (www.yourdomain.com or web.me.com/username) where it says Starting URL
If you have multiple websites submit http://yourdomain.com/sitename/ or web.me.com/username/sitename/
-Click on start
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5) Download the un-compressed XML Sitemap
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6) Open it in Safari to see if almost all pages are included, if they aren’t something went wrong. If it doesn’t open with Safari right-click on it (ctrl+click) and choose “Open with” and select “Safari”.
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7) If it’s ok. Upload that file to the main location on your server (not in the folder named with the title of your site...)
Go to the Finder menu and select Go/iDisk/My iDisk/ or hit Schift+Command(Apple)+i and then go to /Web/Sites/. Drop your file into the "Sites" folder. Note that this is different from iDisk/Sites/ folder.
Entering: http://web.me.com/username/sitemap.xml or http://www.yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml in your browser should bring up this file. If it doesn’t come up in the browser then something went wrong and you will have to find out what. You probably placed it into the wrong location.
If you have different websites change the name of the sitemap.xml file to sitename_sitemap.xml
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8) Once you uploaded that file go to the Google Webmaster Tools you registered to in Step 2. In the Dashboard if it isn’t already listed type your base URL in the “Add site” field
http://web.me.com/username/ or http://yourdomain.com
and click “Add site”. Your URL will now appear in a list in the Dashboard.
Click it and go to Sitemaps and then choose Add a Sitemap.
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9) After you clicked on Add a sitemap, choose “Add a General Web Sitemap” from the “Choose type...” menu and where it says “My Sitemap URL is:” you only need to write in sitemap.xml (or the name of the file if you renamed it)
If you have multiple websites sitename_sitemap.xml
Do Steps 4 to 9 for the other sites as well. In the end all your sitemaps will show up in the Dashboard.
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10) Google will ask you to verify that it really is your website. “Choose verification method” select “Upload an HTML file” and now you will have to build the verification file. Here’s a How-to written by Roddy
- Go to your applications folder and launch Text Edit.
- Don't put anything on the blank page.
- Select File/Save As.
- In the popup window "Save As" box enter your Google number (something like google05a23d347cXXXXXX )
- In the "Where" box select desktop.
- In "File Format" menu select HTML.
- Click "Save".
- A file will appear on your desktop called google05a23d347cXXXXXX.html
Go to the Finder menu and select Go/iDisk/My iDisk/ or hit Schift+Command(Apple)+i and then go to /Web/Sites/. Drop your file into the "Sites" folder
Entering: http://web.me.com/username/google05a23d347cXXXXXX.html or www.yourdomain.com/google05a23d347cXXXXXX.html in your browser should bring up this file. If it doesn’t come up in the browser then something went wrong and you will have to find out what.
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11) That’s it. However you will have to wait about two weeks before you see your site indexed by google. To see if your website is indexed in google go to google, in the search box type site:’your url’ (see example here ) note that it changes whether you include or not the www. I find most of my pages indexed without because I first registered it that way.
You will have to replace the old Sitemap with a new one every time you add a new page to your website to keep it updated. No need to update it if you republish without having added a new page. To replace a sitemap:
- Make a new sitemap
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-Upload it to your iDisk
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-Go to your Google Webmaster Tools account
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-Click on the URL of your site
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-Go to Sitemaps, Check the box near the sitemap file name and hit “Resubmit selected” and you’re done.
NOTE 1: about Meta-Tags and Search engine optimization:
Some time ago you could "feed" search engines with words (keywords) by putting them in the meta tags (more precisely meta description tags). Nowadays search engines ignore those tags (probably due to spamming) and only look at the content. To me meta description tags are useless.
On this Google Webmaster Help page Google states that
"This tag provides a short description of the page. In some situations this description is used as a part of the snippet shown in the search results."
Under the title tag looking at my website on Google the actual content of the pages displays. If you don't add meta tags to your pages Google takes the whole content of the page. Depending on what the potential-vistors search for the description (snippet of the content of my pages) changes dynamically. If the relevant part is at the bottom of the page it shows the bottom of the page if it's at the top it shows the top. Meta description tags aren't so dynamical. In addition to that if one puts a sentence in the meta description tags it would just show that sentence. Whereas if the content is taken it contains a lot of sentences, meaning lots of keywords.
On the previously linked Google Webmaster Help page clicking on More informations talking about meta tags they state:
"they won't impact your ranking within search results"
which is the main reason why people want to add them: a higher ranking. Doesn’t work, sorry.
I read that Yahoo makes more use of the tags than Google does. But it's a fact that more than 70% of the searches on the web are made with Google (who's using Yahoo?). Please note that if a website gets indexed by Google it most probably will be indexed by Yahoo and other search engines too.
I never did any Meta Tags and it seems to me that my site works fine without Meta Tags on Google... Google includes Page Title and Page Content.
Another issue with Meta Tags on iWeb is that if I publish to a folder I can add MetaTags but next time I publish to a folder iWeb will overwrite that file and the Meta Tags are gone... I then would have to add them all over again... Time... Time... Time... This also applies to MobileMe.
Bottom line: I see no need for Meta Description Tags.
That’s my point of view. But people reading this: You're free to decide on your own... It's up to you...
If you want to put meta-tags on your iWeb created site you can use the iWeb SEO Tool (freeware) made by Rage. As I already told you I think that meta description-tags are useless. But with the iWeb SEO Tool you can also add alt-text. Alt-texts are alternative text for images which to me are useful especially for search engines which can’t actually look at the picture to see what’s on them. The application is also useful to change title tags and add robots tags (which tell search engines which pages you don't want to be indexed, more info on the above linked Google Webmaster Help page).
5 TIPS:
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-Update your sitemaps
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-Make a second nav bar made of text links as previously explained
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-Further use synonyms in your content. Write your content so that it fits as good as possible everything a 'googler' could search for.
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-Search engines don't look for tags, they look for the content of your pages.
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-In the end it’s all about three things: Content, Content and Content
To know what Googlers are searching for visit this page: Google insights for search.
As an example if you have a website with music lyrics write “lyrics” in the searchbox. Scroll down and you will see which lyrics are the most-searched ones at the moment. You can also select an area. The lyrics searched for in the UK usually are different from the ones searched in the USA. These are the keywords you have to integrate in your content.
NOTE 2: about Google and domain masking:
Using WebForward with cloaking/masking may make the sites appear in google without content because it generates an iFrame embedding the content but the page itself doesn’t have any. If you want your sites to appear in Google under your personal domain you have to have it forwarded as CNAME. Look at the Personal domains FAQ for further informations.
NOTE 3: “I have now been told that the iWeb sites are based on images, not text, hence they won't show up on a Google search. help!”
iWeb pages are text. BUT (that's what the one who told you meant) if you use custom Fonts, thus not Internet Standard Fonts, those text fields will be converted in an image by iWeb to be sure that people see the texts as you chose.
Yet, again, as long as you use Times, Times New Roman, Helvetica and other Internet standard fonts it's NOT image, IT IS TEXT.
To see which text fields are gonna be turned into images go to File=>Preferences and check the “Show text imaging indicator” box. iWeb is gonna display a yellow picture symbol on the text field. The symbol will not be published to the net.
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