Hi there, I have an XML sitemap submitted to Google Webmasters for my blog. I also have a HTML version of a sitemap which is available from my footer throughout my blog. You can take a look at my blog here - footyblog.net The blog uses categories as the top menu navigation bar. So posts I made are tagged (I try to select one category but this isn't always possible, which can lead to posts appearing under multiple categories). I'm a bit unsure of how the categories are used by Google etc. Would they crawl each category and then discover the posts, or would Google not crawl categories by default? Is there a way to change this setting within WP, or is it not advised? If anyone could recommend me something I'd appreciate it. Currently I'm a bit unsure, what happens to old posts after they "drop off" my homepage - would they no longer be crawled as there were no more internal links pointing their way? With my sitemap.html, is it necessary to include this as I'm using WP and most posts are easy to find by using the menu at the top of the page (so it's hard to get lost really). With my sitemap.xml, which I generated using a free sitemap generator then submitted to Google Webmasters, how can I trust that it has detected my most important posts/pages/categories correctly? Could anyone recommend me a way to set it up for my blog (link at the top of this post). I'm a bit confused because of when I searched Google for my site: footyblog.net, I noticed that Google had selected some sitelinks which aren't really the "top level" pages of my blog - they were a mismatch of old/new posts. So I'm wondering if Google may have problems crawling my site. Thanks to anyone who is able to help out!
Forget free sitemap generator. Install Google XML Sitemaps plugin for wordpress. You can change your sitemap settings in your WP admin panel.