Meta descriptions and a sitemap for pages and posts

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  craigkirkby · Member · Mar 24, 2014 at 5:31 am

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  I’ve recently migrated my site from WP.org to WP.com because of the amount of time I needed to sink into maintaining the WP.org platform (with the severely stunted skills I possess). After being hacked twice in nine months and paying my host extra to clean it up without success, the peace of mind here is fantastic.

  I do realise that I am now limited in someways, but I was wondering whether I’m able to (1) determine the metadata that appears for a page or post in search engine results, and (2) add a sitemap to the site? Are these options within the WP.com platform?

  Here’s my site: A Better Future Now.

  The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)

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  hfzrhmn · Member · Mar 24, 2014 at 6:45 am

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  Hi again,

  1) Nope, no way to change that here

  2) Sitemap can be added manually, here’s a tutorial to do so: http://en.support.wordpress.com/sitemaps/

  There are also a few shortcodes here http://en.support.wordpress.com/shortcodes/#miscellaneous that will help you create your sitemap (most notably the archives, display-posts, and list-pages shortcodes).

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  craigkirkby · Member · Mar 24, 2014 at 7:01 am

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  Wow, hfzrhmn! Do you field every query on here? ;-)

  Thanks again for the help. On the first link you gave me, I’ve just read that I can find my XML site map here: yourblogname.wordpress.com/sitemap.xml

  If I’ve got a custom premium domain name (i.e. http://www.abetterfuturenow.com), do I still use the .wordpress.com in the sitemap URL?

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  hfzrhmn · Member · Mar 24, 2014 at 7:04 am

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  Haha, nope, just happened to be around.

  If you have a custom domain name, you can use that domain name instead. http://abetterfuturenow.com/sitemap.xml outputs a sitemap XML correctly for me, can you check?

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  craigkirkby · Member · Mar 24, 2014 at 7:10 am

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  I clicked the link you gave me, and it seemed to work. That’s what you meant by check, isn’t it?

  I noticed you wrote it without the www. as in http://abetterfuturenow.com and not http://www.abetterfuturenow.com. Does it not matter whether the www. is included on WP.com?

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  hfzrhmn · Member · Mar 24, 2014 at 8:27 am

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  I clicked the link you gave me, and it seemed to work. That’s what you meant by check, isn’t it?

  Yes, just so you can be sure that the XML exists using your own domain.

  On WordPress.com, URLs with or without www should be interchangeable, both can be used without any issue.

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  craigkirkby · Member · Mar 24, 2014 at 8:49 am

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  Many thanks again! Have a great day.

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  hfzrhmn · Member · Mar 24, 2014 at 8:57 am

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  You’re welcome, and you too :)