Title: Google Sitemaps Plugin
Last modified: August 18, 2016

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# Google Sitemaps Plugin

 *  [James](https://wordpress.org/support/users/jamestl2/)
 * (@jamestl2)
 * [19 years ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/google-sitemaps-plugin-2/)
 * Well, I just finished installing the plugin, and I click on the (Rebuild Sitemap)
   button, and I get these errors:
 * Could not write into /home/(username)/public_html/sitemap.xml
 * and
 * Could not write into /home/(username)/public_html/sitemap.xml.gz
 * Don’t know why it wont build a sitemap, am I already suppose to have these files
   created?
 * PS: I am using 2.2, so I thought I would need the latest update, so I downloaded
   that plugin, and got the same errors.

Viewing 9 replies - 1 through 9 (of 9 total)

 *  [westie](https://wordpress.org/support/users/westie/)
 * (@westie)
 * [19 years ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/google-sitemaps-plugin-2/#post-567198)
 * Can’t help much, but i’ve got a similar problem!!
 * i’ve just installed google sitemap plugin too on
 * [http://www.homereporter.co.uk/blog/](http://www.homereporter.co.uk/blog/)
 * in the google sitemap plugin folder i changed all the permissions to 666 – which
   i thought would allow writing…. (please let me know if this is not correct!)
 * but i get a 404 error page on /sitemap.xml
 * i can create sitemap.xml and sitemap.xml.gz, but where do i upload them too?
 * (no rude answers please!)
 * thanks
    kathryn
 *  Thread Starter [James](https://wordpress.org/support/users/jamestl2/)
 * (@jamestl2)
 * [19 years ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/google-sitemaps-plugin-2/#post-567321)
 * Still receiving the same errors, problem isn’t fixed yet.
 * Kathryn,
    If you mean by “where do I upload them to?”, how to actually submit
   them to Google, here is what I did:
 * 1. Go to Google Webmaster Central ( [http://www.google.com/webmasters/](http://www.google.com/webmasters/))
   
   2. First Make sure your site is verified by Google 3. Click on “Webmaster Tools”
   4. Click on Manage: www.(yoursite).com 5. There should be 4 tabs: Diagnostic,
   Statistics, Links, Sitemap (Click on this tab) 6. Then there should be an “add
   a sitemap” link 7. Then choose “Add General Web Sitemap” from the drop-down menu
   8. Then type in the URL of the sitemap (www.(yoursite).com/sitemap.xml or whatever)
   and click “Add Web Sitemap”
 * Hope this Helps
 *  [chrisforce](https://wordpress.org/support/users/chrisforce/)
 * (@chrisforce)
 * [19 years ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/google-sitemaps-plugin-2/#post-567322)
 * Westie, I installed it fine but I did need to change the files to be writable.
   I placed them in the main directory (not the plugins folder).
 *  Thread Starter [James](https://wordpress.org/support/users/jamestl2/)
 * (@jamestl2)
 * [19 years ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/google-sitemaps-plugin-2/#post-567592)
 * Still getting the errors, are we supposed to have the sitemap files pre-made?
   If so, then with what program should they be created with?
 *  Moderator [Samuel Wood (Otto)](https://wordpress.org/support/users/otto42/)
 * (@otto42)
 * WordPress.org Admin
 * [19 years ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/google-sitemaps-plugin-2/#post-567593)
 * It doesn’t matter, just make empty files in a text editor if you like. They’ll
   get overwritten anyway. Then make the files 666 (not the directory itself, just
   the files).
 *  Thread Starter [James](https://wordpress.org/support/users/jamestl2/)
 * (@jamestl2)
 * [19 years ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/google-sitemaps-plugin-2/#post-567594)
 * Thanks a lot, that did the trick!
 * Forgive me for asking, probaably a stupid question, but what is a “ping”? It 
   says I successfully pinged Google. Does it mean the file was automatically sent
   to Google?
 *  [drmike](https://wordpress.org/support/users/drmike/)
 * (@drmike)
 * [19 years ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/google-sitemaps-plugin-2/#post-567595)
 * The plugin should do that automatically. It’s just letting Google know that your
   site’s been updated.
 *  Moderator [Samuel Wood (Otto)](https://wordpress.org/support/users/otto42/)
 * (@otto42)
 * WordPress.org Admin
 * [19 years ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/google-sitemaps-plugin-2/#post-567624)
 * > _Forgive me for asking, probaably a stupid question, but what is a “ping”? 
   > It says I successfully pinged Google. Does it mean the file was automatically
   > sent to Google?_
 * Sorta. Basically, it sent a message to Google telling them that the sitemap was
   updated. Google will come by later and grab a copy for their search engine to
   store.
 *  [westie](https://wordpress.org/support/users/westie/)
 * (@westie)
 * [19 years ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/google-sitemaps-plugin-2/#post-567632)
 * I did it!
 * thanks for all your help folks!
 * kathryn
    [http://www.homereporter.co.uk/blog](http://www.homereporter.co.uk/blog)
 * lets hope it helps with the seo

Viewing 9 replies - 1 through 9 (of 9 total)

The topic ‘Google Sitemaps Plugin’ is closed to new replies.

## Tags

 * [created](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/created/)
 * [errors](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/errors/)
 * [rebuild](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/rebuild/)
 * [sitemap](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/sitemap/)

 * 9 replies
 * 5 participants
 * Last reply from: [westie](https://wordpress.org/support/users/westie/)
 * Last activity: [19 years ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/google-sitemaps-plugin-2/#post-567632)
 * Status: not resolved

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