Should canonical links be included or excluded in a sitemap?
-
Our company is in the process of updating our sitemap. Should we include or exclude canonical links.
-
Include everything. You want Google to spider everything.
Let's take an example:
Two pages which talk about Llama Grooming, one which focuses on Llama Fur Enhancement, and the other that focuses on Llama Fur Lustre.
The content for both pages really is the same, just the SEO is a little different for each.
Your main page: www.llamas.com/lfe.com (Llama Fur Enhancement) has all the copy SEO'd for Llama Fur Enhancement. Your "alternate" page has the same copy, but optimized for Llama Fur Lustre with a Canonical REL tag back to the original page. If you omit the second page from the Sitemap, it doesn't get spidered, then what's the point? Both need to be spidered, but the Canonical REL tag tells it which is the "official" page so you don't get dinged for duplicate content.
Capice?
Jim
-
So if I understand correctly, Our Sitemap.xml should only have the "original" page, not pages that have a canonical link.
Thank You for your assistance
-
You mean in your sitemap.xml?
The canonical tag is a tab that goes on pages to let the bots know which URLs you want to get credit for content. So theoretically, your sitemap.xml file URLs should be very similar to your canonical links you are declaring in your metas.
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
-
Spotify XML Sitemap
All, Working on an SEO work up for a Spotify site. Looks like they are using a sitemap that links to additional pages. A problem, none of the links are actually linked within the sitemap. This feels like a strong error. https://lubricitylabs.com/sitemap.xml Thoughts?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | dmaher0 -
How to determine the value of these links?
Hi Guys, How can you determine the value of external links which are deep inside a website. Two examples: http://www.sheknows.com/community/home/ten-tips-buy-car-insurance Two sub-folders deep. http://www.dogfoodhowto.com/899/whats-the-best-puppy-food-for-cockapoo-puppy-at-home.html One sub-folder deep. These links are clearly far from the homepage, so was wondering if they are worthless or how can you determine the value of them? Cheers.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | nattyhall0 -
Should we optimise our internal links?
Hi again, We recently had a technical search audit done by a specialist agency and they discovered a number of internal links that caused redirects to happen. The agency has recommended we update all of these links to link directly to the destination so we don't lose out on link equity. We'd just like to know if you think this would be a worthwhile use of our time. Our web team seem to think that returning a 301 to a crawler means that the crawler will stop indexing the original URL and instead index the redirected destination? Thanks all. Clair
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | iescape2 -
Sitemap Query
I've decided to write my own sitemap because frankly, the automated ones pull all kinds of out of I don't know where. So to get around that, manual it is. But I have some products appear in various categories, should I still list every product in each category in the sitemap, regardless of some being duplicates, or should I choose the most relevant category and list them there? I do have a canonical URL extension which should resolve any duplicate content I have.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | moon-boots0 -
How to do Spam Link Analysis before posting a link?
OSE provides Spam analysis for website link profile, Do Moz have a tool to check the link quality before placing a link? How to do Spam Link Analysis before posting a link?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | bondhoward1 -
Can you recover from "Unnatural links to your site—impacts links" if you remove them or have they already been discounted?
If Google has already discounted the value of the links and my rankings dropped because in the past these links passed value and now they don't. Is there any reason to remove them? If I do remove them, is there a chance of "recovery" or should I just move forward with my 8 month old blogging/content marketing campaign.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Beastrip0 -
Sitemap.xml
Hi guys I read the seomoz article about sitemap.xml dated 2008. Just wanted to check views on: Is it worthwhile using the 'priority' What if everything is set to 100% Any tips to using the priority Many thanks in advance! Richard
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Richard5550 -
Subdomain Metrics Links??
I have been analysing my companies website against our competitors and we beat them hands down on everything apart from the total links in the subdomain metrics. Our competitor jumped above us a couple of months ago to grab the number one spot for our industries most valuable keyword. They have had a new website designed and after looking at the source code and running it through SEO MOZ in comparison to our site I can't see how they have manged to do it. We beat them hands down on all factors apart from subdomain metrics > Total links where they have twice as many. When it comes to Page Specific Metrics and Root Domain Metrics we easily beat them on all factors. Does anyone have any ideas what I need to do to improve the subdomain metrics? Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Detectamet0