How to determine if my site map needs work?
-
I recently spoke to a consultant at a search conference who took a look at my site map and mentioned it looked like google would have a hard time crawling the site and indexing new pages and changes. I am managing an ecommerce site with a bunch of products, however, I am not an XML expert by any means so i'd appreciate any advice on what to look for in the site map that would possibly be affecting googles ability to crawl/index.
-
I think so. You can always run it through a sitemap validator like this one: http://www.validome.org/google/ I'm sure this will give you everything that you need to know. The 404's are pretty normal as long as you are monitoring them and making sure that they are 404's that you want, or if not you might create 301 redirects, etc.
Hope that helps!
-
thanks for the response..the sitemap is loaded in webmaster tools, and google says there are only a handful of errors (less than 25 and all look like 404 responses due to a page not existing). Based on this, it sounds like all is okay right?
-
Have you loaded the sitemap into Google Webmaster Tools? That's a good starting point because Google will tell you where most of the problems are and give you suggestions on how to fix them. One of the most common things I have seen is having characters in the Product names or descriptions that XML doesn't like, i.e. HTML.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
How much copy do you need on the homepage?
The general rule used to be around 300 words of copy on the homepage, but so many new websites now have very little copy, if any, on the homepage. Has the best practice changed here? If you include keywords in the title and header tags, is that enough to support strong SEO on the homepage...or do you need a few hundred words of copy still? Would love to hear what others think.
Web Design | | KevinBloom1 -
How does adding ecommerce to a site affect SEO? What are the negative and what are the positives?
We are thinking of adding ecommerce to our website as a service to our customers. We generate most of our leads through online quote requests but heard that it may be beneficial to our SEO if we add ecommerce for a few products. Is this true? Does anyone have tips on best and worst SEO ecommerce practices?
Web Design | | TeguarMarketing0 -
Site Rebuild -Larger to smaller
Hi All, We are rebuilding an existing site which has around 230 Pages (lots of content not required) down to around 20. Whats the best way to 301 redirect the pages that are going to be removed- (we wont be able to use .htaccess because we are moving to Adobe Business Catalyst) Thoughts? We are trying to preserve as much SEO value as possible.....
Web Design | | OnlineAssetPartners0 -
Pulling old site-map and URL structure of a site
Hey guys how do I pull an old sitemap or URL structure of a site ! This company I am helping out . Build a new site without any 301 redirect ! It's been about 2 months and hosting company sent me. SQL database file said we basically need to build another site ! Wondering if there are any other ways to see what exact urls were existent before their change over
Web Design | | BizDetox0 -
Will updating our site from ASP .NET 3.5 to ASP .NET 4.0 negatively affect SEO?
I've checked out some of the other posts related to .NET upgrades, but none specifically address ASP .NET 4.0. I understand that there are many advantages to upgrading, but as with any change made to site code I want to be 110% positive that this upgrade will not affect how Google ranks my client's pages. Since the URL extension isn't changing (will remain .aspx), I'm thinking that there won't be much of an affect on SEO at all. In fact, I'm making the argument that the upgrade will only improve page rank. Anyone go through this upgrade and experience any immediate benefits or disadvantages? Thanks for your help!
Web Design | | FreightTEK0 -
Build New Site Without Losing Rankings
Good morning SEOmoz community. I have a question which I am pretty sure I already know the answer to, however i thought I would reach out to my fellow experts to see if anyone had some great advice. I would really like to give my website a makeover. i have two thoughts on this, one is to scrap the site completely and start fresh, the other would be to only change it visually, but keep all the content and on-page optimization. I am terrified of losing my rankings. I am ranked position 1 and 2 for highly competitive terms and have another 15 - 20 keywords on page 1. Any advice would be tremendously appreciated!!!
Web Design | | WebbyNabler0 -
Need help setting up google analytics goals / tracking
I don't use Google analytics to see much more than how many visits I'm getting and what sort of keywords people are using to find our site. I'd like to step up my GA skills a bit. I'm wondring if you guys could give me some advice. I've never really set up any GA goals, or used it to track specific things, but I'd like to. Here are a few things off the top of my head that I would like to track. I'm wondring if these are posable in GA, and if someone could give me some feedback on how to track it / set up goals. Thanks.1 1. I'd like to know how many people click play on a video when they are on a page that has a video. 2. I'd like to know how many people are clicking "like" " google plus, etc.) 3. I'd like to know the path people are taking on our site. For instance, if they click a link from Facebook, and go to a landing page, what page are they visiting next..... 4. How long people are staying on the page I would really like to break this down further by people that visit a link I posted on Facebook, or twitter, or from the link on my twitter profile page, etc... Also if there are any other valuable goals / reports that would be useful for a blogger to track I'd appreciate your feedback. Thanks.
Web Design | | NoahsDad0 -
What is wrong with our site?
Hello Seomoz friends. I've about to pull all my hair out and need to turn somewhere. Our site, www.sightmax.com has been around since 2004. We used to be ranked at the top of page two on google under the keyword "live chat". We are no on page 4, heading to page 5. Can anyone take a look at the site and see if anything jumps out at you? The only way we have been able to get on the first page, is the pay for google adwords (which we've been doing every month for 7 years). Again, the site www.sightmax.com and the keyword is "live chat". Any help or feedback would be appreciated SO MUCH! Thanks! Eric
Web Design | | EricWeber0