Get On Google With iWeb ‘08
13 Feb '08 Filed under Tutorials, iWeb -
This Tutorial will show and help you how to get your iWeb-made-site on Google without any difficulties. This tutorial will also show you how to add Meta-Tags to your iWeb site and create a sitemap in a snap.
This tutorial is monary - meaning it will only work with iWeb 2.X (iLife ‘08). It will NOT work with iWeb 1.X. For that you will have to use another tutorial which can be found here.
Now, before you start, let me give you a tip! Watch the whole tutorial through once, and then, only then actually do it while still watching it! That will make sure that you will get it correct in the very first place and thus, will save lot’s of time that you might later waste figuring out which step you missed!
Huddle, huddle and rush, rush will lead you absolutely nowhere!
Do you want new iWeb Templates? Go here
- This video tutorial on how to get on Google, will require you do buy an application called iMap for just €8.99. iMap will also allow you to add sitemaps, add meta-tags, ping Google or even create a Verification File. You will also have to sign up for a Google Webmasters Tools Account.
- Now, add your Site to the following search engines, Google and Yahoo.
- Ready to watch it?
Launch Tutorial
Two things I forgot to mention in the video:
- If you publish to a folder, you of course have to upload the edited files after iMap has created them!
- If you use a “Personal Domain,” the only thing you have to type in iMap 2.6 is your domain. You do not have to add your site/folder name at the end. - Well Done! You have now completed all the big parts of this tutorial and there is nothing in the way that could stop you getting on Google! Don’t forget that you have to repeat the process with iMap about everytime you publish your site.
If you have any problems while doing the tutorial (or more likely; afterwards), then drop me a mail. Please do not post any of your problems in the comments section below! That is only for typing out your anger at me or thanking me…
Additional Info:
Looking for cool iWeb Templates? Go here.
If you enjoy my Tutorial and wish to make a small Donation, then feel free to do so by clicking here.
15 Nov 07 at 6:07 am
Great video!
allthe best
15 Dec 07 at 7:24 am
Hi Max,
at the moment I am mainly concerned with the http://www.perrinskinblends.com because it is more business oriented. I have another website for this product with a website company and using their templates also. I built a site (www.perrinskinblends.com) on my mac with iweb because i knew i could design it the way i wanted and more easily maintain and make adjustments. This was before i started to worry about keywords and meta-tags. Now i have this fully fuctional and designed website and found out that search engines don’t read it. Will imap help me get on yahoo and msn and various other minor search engines also? or just google. I am thinking that it was unwise to use iweb for this site. Basically i am wondering: will imap fill in all the gaps when it comes to all search engines?
15 Dec 07 at 4:33 pm
google is the king of search engines. once it is fully on google, it will be on everything else in several seconds. the sitemaps that imap produces are both yahoo, msn and google functional. same goes for meta tags. yes, imap will surely fill in some gaps that iweb has made.
max
16 Dec 07 at 12:53 am
thanks max,
I’ll probably have questions in the future when i start to apply imap.
thanks again,
james
16 Dec 07 at 9:25 am
james,
ill always answer your questions
max
13 Feb 08 at 10:04 pm
Great new tutorial! Your old tutorial was great - but this is even better! Some parts are a bit confusing - but i am guessing that you will change this. at least you have always done so!
Peter
13 Feb 08 at 10:05 pm
Thanks! Just watched it … wow
21 Feb 08 at 9:59 pm
OH MY GOD!!! This tutorial is even more addictive than the one before. Thank you so much for both iMap and the tutorial. I haven’t seen my site on google, but i only submitted it yesterday
18 Mar 08 at 12:44 am
Max,
The tutorial is great!
Thanks
20 May 08 at 5:04 am
I’m blogging and adding to my website each day — does that mean I have to repeat the entire imap process every day, or just when I add new pages? Do I create a “new” website at the Google Dashboard every time? As a novice, I’m more than a bit confused by how often I have to re-do the process, and how much of it would be involved.
I’m hiding behind the old cliche, “there is no such thing as a dumb question” (this has to come close).
23 May 08 at 5:46 am
Hey I just have one quick question. After doing all of the boxes in IMap and then click on create, Im still having mete-tags error coming up. I also have the new IMap 2.4. Thanks for the help.
24 May 08 at 9:58 pm
I am currently trying all of this again. I didn’t get it to work under the original tutorial and I have also purchased my own domain through godaddy. I am under the personal domain tab and I have entered my personal domain name with my site name as you instructed. At the bottom where I ping Google….do I type my personal domain as I did at the top or do I need to type web.mac.com/mysitename instead? And also, iMap freezes up more than it does anything else. What should I do?
15 Jun 08 at 6:39 am
When I publish any changed on iWeb, do I need to create a whole new sitemap and resubmit it to Google Webmasters?
16 Jun 08 at 8:19 pm
People,
Sorry for not replying to any of your comments - but I rarely check them. Better to drop me an email about it!
@Lawrence: You run iMap each time you publish. The GWA stuff only once.
@Alex: Make sure you are connected via ethernet and not WLAN. Secondly, try deleting your site off the iDisk and republishing. Then run iMap again.
@Ian: You should be typing the personal domain address. Drop me a line about the iMap freezing. Go to the “Contact” page for sending me a mail.
@Dave: Yes, rebuild the sitemap in iMap. Don’t resubmit it to the GWA.
–>
Everyone else, drop me an email using the “Contact” page for any question. I do not answer any stuff here.
–>
Regards,
Max
20 Jun 08 at 4:09 am
Thanks a million, Max.
21 Jun 08 at 12:09 am
Thought I’d pass along a problem I ran into…In the ‘verify’ stage, I did see the gray Google screen, but when I clicked ‘Verify’ in the Dashboard, I got a 401 authorization error. I was also then unable to add my sitemap. After some head scratching I figured out that I had my site password protected in iWeb; once I turned that off, everything worked. So turn off your iWeb password or it won’t work!
23 Jun 08 at 6:39 pm
Yes of course, with a password only Google you would be able to find your site and absolutely no one else!
Max
02 Sep 08 at 8:12 pm
Hi Max,
I did all of your Tutorials for my website. Go Daddy also tries to launch the GWA tools but builds some generic “webmaster” account. That SiteMap got 404 errors but the one I setup using my GMAIL account (the one I want to use), it seems to be working but how long have you noticed the Indexing takes?
I’ve done the “site:www.retreatlajolla.com” and nothing thus far, nor have I found “www.retreatlajolla.com” thus far either using Google.
Should I be much more patient?
02 Sep 08 at 8:22 pm
Also, when using iTweak and iMap, please confirm the sequence of tasks…
1. Update site using iWeb
2. Publish to Folder
3. Open iTweak and make changes necessary
3.5 Process Site in iTweak
4. Open iMap and make changes necessary
4.5 Process site with iMap
5. Upload to GoDaddy.com Hosting Manager
Is this correct?
02 Sep 08 at 8:45 pm
Ryan,
Indexing can take from a week to a month. There is no real pattern there. Google just does what it wants I guess.
So yes, be a bit more patient. The GWTA will give you lots of information on when it is going to crawl your site, what it has found etc, etc…
Yes, the sequence is correct.
Max
24 Sep 08 at 6:10 am
I am having issues with the sitemap file generated with imap. At one point it was putting urls that looked like this into it. http:///rehabandperformance.com It was giving it an extra backslash for some reason. I had to access the sitemap file and manually change this. However, I still can’t get google to recognize my sitemap without erros. It is saying the “This url is not allowed for a Sitemap at this location”. It is saying this for all the pages.
28 Sep 08 at 9:49 pm
Dale,
I am guessing you are FTP-ing your site to your own server. Thus, you should be using the “Other Server” tab in iMap. Secondly, since you just upload the contents of your published site folder, you have to tick an option in iMaps preference pane. If you tick the option to create the sitemap URLs without the folder name, then you shouldn’t be getting any errors.
Max
PS: Make sure that in the GWTA, your URL is as follows: rehabandperformance.com
18 Oct 08 at 10:58 am
Your tutorial is great. I’m going to try it
28 Oct 08 at 12:40 am
Hi Max,
Hi, I am trying to work through iMap, but the first problem I can see is that I use iDisk syncing, and won’t be able to stop that. Is there any way around it? I have tried creating a short cut of the site on the desktop and navigating to that when I choose site (as it is greyed out normally?)
Thanks
Max
02 Nov 08 at 2:00 pm
Max,
No, you will have to deactivate the sync. This is the only way. Though, you can activate it again as soon as iMap is done. It just needs to be off during the time you run iMap.
Max