After successfully creating a sitemap for a website, the sitemap must be submitted to main search engines manually. This article will provide users with information and steps one should take to submit the sitemap to search engine sites. Submitting to Google, Bing, and Yahoo separately is worth it and does not take much time. 

Submitting sitemaps to Google.

The first step is to verify the site. Google will not accept any sitemap without approving the site it is designated for initially.

1. Sign in to Google Webmaster Tools just like you log in into other Google features.
2. Press “Add a Site” and provide the URL to Google site in the pop-up box. Then press continue.
3. On the page that opens afterwards, press the radio button right after “Add Meta Tag.”
4. Copy the Meta tag from the instructions box. We’ll use this later.
5. Open a new tab in the browser and open the site you wish to verify.
6. Press “More Actions” and click “Manage the Site” from the list.
7. Click the General from the tabs which is located right under Site Setting tab.
8. Now the Meta tag copied from the instructions box should be pasted in the place right next to Verification.
9. Save the changes.
10. Go to Webmaster Tools where the Meta tag was copied from.
11. Press Verify.

The second step is to submit the sitemap to the google.

1. Go to Webmaster Tools site.
2. Select the site of the sitemap.
3. Click Site Configuration-> Sitemaps.
4. Click Add/Test Sitemap which is located in top right corner.
5. In the box that pops up, paste the following code:
    /system/feeds/sitemap
6. Submit the sitemap.

The sitemap is now successfully submitted.

Submitting sitemaps to Yahoo.

1. Log in to the Yahoo account.
2. Navigate to Yahoo Site Explorer.
3. Add your website to the Yahoo by copy-pasting site’s URL and clicking Add My Site afterwards. Make sure to validate that the owner is you. To submit a sitemap, the validation must be done prior to it, otherwise the sitemap will not be posted.
4. Press your website URL and click on feed links in right columns.
5. Paste your site map URL and let the drop down “Website Feed.” Click Add Feed afterwards.
6. Yahoo team will check and validate the sitemap and site as well. It will begin indexing the site as soon as when they determine that the sitemap is efficient and errorless.

 *** Update: Yahoo Site Explorer has been replaced by Bing Webmaster Tools

Submitting sitemaps to Bing.

1. Login to Windows Live Account.
2. Navigate to Bing Master Center.
3. Add your website to Bing search engine by filling the URL bar with your sitemap’s URL. Afterwards, press Add Site.
4. Bing staff will check and validate the sitemap and the site. They will begin indexing the site whenever they determine that the sitemap is errorless.

Submitting Sitemaps to Ask.com

Currently, Ask.com does not allow one to submit URL as a site for search engine. They do, however, give permission to submit the sitemap of the website. The interface is not as easy to follow as major search engines have, but one can submit the site map of a site by pasting the URL provided below and pasting the domain name on it…

http://submissions.ask.com/ping?sitemap=http://<The Domain Name>/sitemapxml.aspx

Above we provided guide step-by-step on how to submit sitemaps to major search engines. We provided straightforward and efficient path on how to do it.

*** Update: Ask.com no longer allows you to submit sitemaps. Reference your sitemap location from your robots.txt so that Ask.com can index your content.