So you have a Tumblr blog and hope to get indexed quickly by Google.
Here’s how:
1. Sign in to your Google Webmaster account.
2. Add your Tumblr blog URL to your website lists.
3. Verify your Tumblr blog.
Copy the Metatag from your Google Webmaster. Now sign in to your Tumblr account. At Dashboard, find ‘Customize’ in the right sidebar, click it. Find Theme, second at top left and click on it. Click on Custom HTML at the bottom, then find and paste the metatag given by Google just after <head> line. Save and close. Now go back to your Google Webmaster click on Verify.
4. Submit Sitemap.
As Tumblr is not what we call self hosted website, we can’t create and submit sitemap.xml file to Google. But there’s a 3rd party solution for that, in tumblrMap. Submit your Tumblr login, then follow the steps. You’ll need to add another metatag given by tumblrMap, you can follow instructions on step 3 above. You can see reports on your tumblrMap account, associated with your Tumblr blog (s) Sitemap.
5. Backup your Custom Theme.
As easy as 1 click from the theme dashboard, you can change your Tumblr theme. But that also means you’ll miss the metatags you inserted, as well as manual Disqus comments or any other third party codes you had on you old theme. Backing up will make your life easier anytime you want to switch themes/
Note on Step 3 & 4.
- On what you submitted on step no. 3:
I still need to wait some more days to see what happen to that, as it doesn’t have any sitemap submitted, which probably later relate to reports for my site in my Google Webmaster account.
- Step 4:
This also means you are giving your Tumblr blog’s website verification to 3rd party, although they cannot control anything related to your Tumblr.
Follow my Tumblr here.
Wew.. thanks 4 info. Just know it
Hi Robin,
Thanks for posting this!
I didn’t realize you could change the tags in the themes for Tumblr. I guess it is good to note that if you ever change it you will need to update this.
Or perhaps google only verifies your ownership one time.
Either way…
Thanks for the post it was really helpful!
Sincerely,
Jay
Glad it’s helpful for you, Jay. Cheers!
I don’t think tumblrMap works anymore..
Yeah, it’s currently unaccessible.
But actually every Tumblr site has a sitemap by default –> http://yoursite.tumblr.com/sitemap1.xml.
I don’t get the point of this?
I don’t get the point of your question.
Robin, thanks for your post. I do, however, have a question regarding #03 above: ‘Verify your Tumblr blog’, where you advise:
‘…Click on Custom HTML at the bottom, then find and paste the metatag given by Google just after that line…’
To which ‘line’ are you referring?
Ta, Hendrik
Sorry, just fixed the line. Should be under <head> line
Robin, it actually worked, THANK YOU after a tortuous journey that finally brought me to your website (via the Google help forum). Now for the sitemap, which promises to be as hazardous and problematic seeing our firewall won’t allow me access to http://tumblrmap.net/ (forbidden).
For sitemap, see comment above http://lwrb.in/er6nbv
That sitemap is not working.
Which one?
Google is Evil|iamtehawesomest|
Hi
I tried adding the metatag under the line, but the google verification failed….How come?
Not sure, try again.
Thanks a lot. I was trying to figure this all out on my own but didn’t think to check the themes tab lol. Again, thanks and good info!
You welcome
Robin
I haven’t been able to get goggle to verify.
my verification code looks a bit like this
google-site-verification: googleexxxxxxxxbbe.html
Do I insert just , under the prompt????
THx
Sorry I meant under the head prompt
Use Meta Tag (copy from Google Webmaster) and insert it into head tag, you can’t use the googleexxxxxxxxbbe.html to verify Tumblr site.
Thank you for providing that clear and concise info. We now have our tumblr page in our webmaster tools!
Actually sitemaps are automatically created by Tumblr which also adds a robot.txt to your site so that the crawler loads all the sitemaps generated. You can check the robot.txt at yourblog.com/robot.txt and the sitemaps at yourblog/sitemap*.txt. * being 1,2,3,etc.
we don’t have a section of our html on our tumblr
just ( i have searched all through it
I have no idea where to paste the meta tag – can’t work out what to do…
that deleted half my post
i said
we don’t have a HEAD section – there is only a bit that has /HEAD (i.e.: forward slash head not just head on it’s own
Tumblrmap does not work anymore.
Any alternatives.
Add your Tumblr blog URL to your website lists. – I’m on my google account but where can I find my website lists?
Hello, your article is very helpful. Thank to help me make tumblr sitemap
At first I thought this post was useless because tumblrmaps isn’t avaialable. But in the comments I found tumblr has a sitemap built in. So thanks for the post! I still got what I was looking for (/sitempas1.xml at end of url).