I was trying to figure a way to add the sitemap to Google webmaster tools for my blog on blogger.com and to allow user to subscribe my post feed through feedburner. I test my concept on terencechang.blogspot.com and profashionjewerly.blogspot.com. I finally find a way to do it. It’s not perfect, but it works.
As you might already know that blogger.com provides the default Atom.xml as the post feed. However, if you try to add the FeedBurner under your blogger control panel (settings -> Site Feed), you will find that all URL of your post are redirected to FeedBurner’s feed URL. In that case, the Atom.xml site map link is no longer working under Google’s webmaster tools.
A viewer posts a comment about the solutions for blogger. You can read post and comment here. JohnMu is very kindly providing us a link to the FeedBurner forum about the solution. There in an instruction on how to set your site map for Google Webmaster tools. Well. It simply uses the following URL as the site map. As you can see it adds a redirect=false at the end of the normal feed URL.
http://terencechang.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?redirect=false. You just change terencechang to your blog name.
Wait. It doesn’t work for me. When you click on the link, you see a FEED page and the URLs are your post URLs. That’s good. However, Google webmaster tools won’t accept the URL.
You can see the snap shot of the error message on Google Webmaster Tools. It’s not acceptable.
So what is the solution?
It’s very simple. You simply use http://terencechang.blogspot.com/atom.xml as your site map on Google Webmaster tools and register your site feed on FeedBurner. So my feedBurner feed URL will look like this.
http://feeds.feedburner.com/terencechangblogspot
The only think you have to do is this. DO NOT put the feedBurner feed URL to your Blogger control panel. Leave the “Post Feed Redirect URL” field empty. That’s it. What that does is to use your original atom.xml as the sitemap while people can still subscribe your FeedBurner RSS feed.
Now. All my blogger blog are using atom.xml as sitemap while people can still click on the big RSS feed icon to subscribe to my feed. I can track all clicks through and many other statistics.
Hi Terence, I don’t use Blogger, but seems like a nice work around. A real pity that both blogspot.com and feeds via FeedBurner are blocked here in China though – makes it very difficult for me to use these sites (but not impossible as you know). Good luck with the new site.
@Stephen Cronin:
Thanks! China blocks a lot of domains. I was not able to view pictures on flickr.com, when I was in China. If your viewer can read Chinese, you can try feedsky.com, a copycat of feedburner.
Happy holiday!
Hi Terence and readers,
You can actually do this, and have the Blogger redirection to the Feedburner feed too. Just like the Feedburner forum suggests, but redirect the XML file, not the directory substructure. Details in this blog tip I wrote last month.
@1001 Blog tips:
That sounds a good solution. Thanks!
Hello guys,
can any of you confirm this trick works? All i have to do is remove the feedburner redirect in my Blogger settings, and Feedburner will still work?
Yes. That’s what I said near the end of the post. Don’t use your FeedBurner Feed address in your control panel.
Thanks for the tip. I have been stuck trying to get a sitemap happening for a while. When I tried another similar method, I got a heap of errors that feedburner would not accept a sitemap. Hopefully this work around will fix it!!
@Jimeh:
Thank you for stopping by. I bet you will find it useful!
Thanks…a lot it worked for me…I was wondering since neither rss nor atom.xml was working. I understand now why the sitemap was not getting created.
@Sateesh:
Thank you for stopping by. I am glad that it works out OK for you.
ur tip had helped me a lot. i was screwed already finding a solutions coz mine didn’t work and the solution is i only remove my site feed that i write in the Redirect URL feed.almost 2 weeks gathering solutions but didn’t work til i found this info. thank u so much
@Hopeful:
Thank you for stopping by. I am glad to help. Enjoy blogging.
I read four other web sites, the Google Help and the Feedburner Help, but could not understand what I needed to do to add my feed to Google sitemaps.
Your information was so clear and to the point — and it worked.
Thanks for this great service you provide.