Automatic Sitemap Generation

Sitemaps play a vital role in search engine optimization. They help search engines quickly crawl through pages resulting in better search engine rankings. With better search engine rankings, your customers can quickly find answers to queries that they have. 

With the automatic sitemap generation feature, we will automatically generate a sitemap for each account and store the XML here: http://<your_domain>.freshdesk.com/support/sitemap.xml. If you have a CNAME set up, please use that URL instead. Example: http://support.<your_domain>.com/support/sitemap.xml. This feature comes in handy as it saves the admin the trouble of regenerating and re-submitting sitemaps every time there is a change in content. 

The search engines will detect your sitemap whenever they crawl your site. If you are on the Estate or Forest plan, the admin can proactively submit this sitemap URL to search engines such as Google and Bing to get the portal indexed. 

Note: The sitemap XML will be updated once a week (every Sunday). Any addition/deletion of articles will be reflected here. 

When do you need a sitemap? 

You can benefit from using a sitemap if you have:

a) a large site 

b) a site with pages that are not linked to each other 

c) a new website

d) a website that uses rich media content 

This article by Google provides you some more pointers on when and why you need a sitemap. 

Submitting sitemaps to search engines 

Estate+ customers have the ability to submit their sitemaps to search engines like Google and Bing and monitor their performance.

• Go to Google Search Console https://www.google.com/webmasters and sign in to your account (or create one)
• Click Add A Property, enter the URL of your support portal and click Add.

• Once added, you need to verify your account. Click on Alternate methods and choose HTML tag option.

• Copy the generated meta tag and add the same in your helpdesk.
  • Login as an Admin.
  • Go to Admin > Channels > Portal > Customize Portal (on the required portal) > Layout & pages tab.
  • Under Portal layout, in the 'Head' section, paste the meta tag (as shown below) and click Save and Publish.

• Once the code is added and saved in your helpdesk and on hitting ‘Verify’ on the Google Search Console, your portal will be verified.
• Navigate to Crawl > Sitemaps and click on ‘Add/Test Sitemaps’. In the text box, enter ‘support/sitemap.xml’ to complete the sitemap URL and either:

  • Hit ‘Test’  to check the number of pages submitted and for any possible errors. 

  • Hit ‘Submit’ to complete the process

• Once the sitemap is submitted, you can see the details of your portal such as the number of pages submitted segregated by the type of content. You will also have the ability to resubmit your sitemap manually as and when required.

Note: The process is similar with Bing and other search engines. Use the Dashboard in Webmaster tools for Bing.

Sitemaps play a vital role in search engine optimization. They help search engines quickly crawl through pages resulting in better search engine rankings. With better search engine rankings, your customers can quickly find answers to queries that they have. 

With the automatic sitemap generation feature, we will automatically generate a sitemap for each account and store the XML here: http://<your_domain>.freshdesk.com/support/sitemap.xml. This feature comes in handy as it saves the admin the trouble of regenerating and re-submitting sitemaps every time there is a change in content. 

The search engines will detect your sitemap whenever they crawl your site. If you are on the Estate or Forest plan, the admin can proactively submit this sitemap URL to search engines such as Google and Bing to get the portal indexed. 

Note: The sitemap XML will be updated once a week (every Sunday). Any addition/deletion of articles will be reflected here. 

When do you need a sitemap? 

If you are 

a)  a large site 

b) a site with pages that are not linked to each other 

c) a new website or 

d) a website that uses rich media content -  you can benefit from using a sitemap. 

This article by Google provides you some more pointers on when and why you need a sitemap. 

Submitting sitemaps to search engines 

Estate+ customers have the ability to submit their sitemaps to search engines like Google and Bing and monitor the performance.

• Go to Google Search Console https://www.google.com/webmasters and sign in to your account (or create one)
• Click on ‘Add A Property’ and enter the URL of your support portal and hit ‘Add’.

• Once added, you need to verify your account. Click on ‘Alternate methods’ tab and choose HTML tag option.

• Copy the generated meta tag and add the same in your helpdesk.
  • Login as an Admin to your helpdesk
  • Go to Admin > Portal > Customize Portal (on the required portal) > Layout & pages tab
  • Under Portal layout, in the 'Head' section, paste the meta tag (as shown below) and click ‘Save and Publish’

• Once the code is added and saved in your helpdesk and on hitting ‘Verify’ on the Google Search Console, your portal will be verified.
• Navigate to Crawl > Sitemaps and click on ‘Add/Test Sitemaps’. In the text box, enter ‘support/sitemap.xml’ to complete the sitemap URL and either:

  • Hit ‘Test’  to check the number of pages submitted and for any possible errors. 

  • Hit ‘Submit’ to complete the process

• Once the sitemap is submitted, you can see the details of your portal such as the number of pages submitted segregated by the type of content. You will also have the ability to resubmit your sitemap manually as and when required.

Note: The process is similar with Bing and other search engines. Use the Dashboard in Webmaster tools for Bing.