I need an XML sitemap expert for 5 minutes!
-
Hi all!
I'm hoping that someone with a lot of experience with XML sitemaps can help me out here...
When submitting my sitemap in Google Webmaster Tools, these are the results:
2,414,714 Submitted
34,721 IndexedAnd there's also tonnes of warnings.
Would anyone be able to take a quick look at these sitemaps to perhaps advise me on what's going wrong there? These do not load without the www, not sure if this is an issue?
http://www.eumom.ie/sitemap.xml
http://www.eumom.ie/sitemap.xml.gzThanks everyone in advance!!
Gavin
-
Few rules about sitemaps;
-
You should only include in them pages you also want crawled and indexed
-
They should not contain URLs with 404s or blocked by robots.txt
My guess is there are too many URLs in the sitemaps, since I'd guess the website is not over 2 million actual "real" pages,
Also, I randomly clicked on a URL in one of the sitemaps and it 404'd;
http://www.eumom.ie/forums/topic/oakhill-school-leopardstown-/
This is probably causing a lot of the errors you see. It's honestly not a 5 minute fix - but if it were my site, I would be using the Yoast SEO plugin and using the sitemap feature within Yoast. It makes it very easy to include / exclude certain pages and updated automatically etc.
I think there must be a way to tell your plugin what to include / exclude from the sitemap but I don't have as much experience with it.
But generally - only include pages you want crawled and indexed. Don't include pages that 404.
-
-
Hi all,
Many thanks for your input so far, much appreciated!
The sitemaps that you are seeing actually were generated using that plugin you mentioned. Formatting-wise, do you see anything wrong with the sitemaps?
Thanks!!
Gavin -
I couldn't agree more altecdesign!
http://wordpress.org/plugins/google-sitemap-generator/ all the way!
-
That XML sitemap you linked too is formatted in an odd way. I noticed the site you are generating the xml sitemap for is based in wordpress. There is a really solid sitemap plugin you could use to generate your XML and submit to google instead of the current plugin you are using: http://wordpress.org/plugins/google-sitemap-generator/
I've used that plugnin numerous times and submitted sitemaps to google with no errors. Hopefully that helps you out.
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
-
New pages need to be crawled & indexed
Hi there, When you add pages to a site, do you need to re-generate an XML site map and re-submit to Google/Bing? I see the option in Google Webmaster Tools under the "fetch as Google tool" to submit individual pages for indexing, which I am doing right now. Thanks,
Technical SEO | | SSFCU
Sarah0 -
Should 301-ed links be removed from sitemap?
In an effort to do some housekeeping on our site we are wanting to change the URL format for a couple thousand links on our site. Those links will all been 301 redirected to corresponding links in the new URL format. For example, old URL format: /tag/flowers as well as search/flowerswill be 301-ed to, new URL format: /content/flowers**Question:**Since the old links also exist in our sitemap, should we add the new links to our sitemap in addition to the old links, or replace the old links with new ones in our sitemap? Just want to make sure we don’t lose the ranking we currently have for the old links.Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!
Technical SEO | | shawn811 -
What rich snippet etc do I need for this
I attach a screenshot after searching "Mashable". Would appreciate a pointer in the right direction to add this for my site. 71VZEJX
Technical SEO | | Jonathan19790 -
Do I need to 301 EVERY page?
I have a client who is consolidating multiple EMD domains into a single domain for SEO reasons and for practical reason, like not having to produce content and perform SEO for 20 domains. My question is this: Do I need to 301 every single page from these old EMD domains? I bill this client hourly and while I could take the time to write 301s for literally thousands of pages I feel that this might not be the best use of his money, that I could strategically 301 the landing pages that get traffic and then route everything else to the new root domain...thoughts? I've researched this and have not been able to hear a really strong opinion yet.
Technical SEO | | BrianJGomez0 -
HTML 5 and SEO any one seen any change ?
I have seen a few articles regarding HTML 5 and its implications re: SEO Has anyone implemented HTML 5 for SEO? and has there been any discernible impact? http://www.netlz.com/seo-blog/2012/04/09/seo-for-html5/ http://searchengineland.com/seo-best-practices-for-html5-truths-half-truths-outright-lies-99406 https://seogadget.co.uk/xhtml-20-and-seo/
Technical SEO | | Metropolis0 -
How to generate a visual sitemap using sitemap.xml
Are there any tools (online preferably) which will take a sitemap.xml file and generate a visual site map? Seems like an obvious thing to do, but can't find any simple tools for this?
Technical SEO | | k3nn3dy30 -
Understanding the actions needed from a Crawl Report
I've just joined SEOMOZ last week and have not even received my first full-crawl yet, but as you know, I do get the re-crawl report. It shows I have 50 301's and 20 rel canonical's. I'm still very confused as to what I'm supposed to fix...And, all the rel canonical's are my sites main pages, so hence I am still equally confused as to what the canonical is doing and how do I properly setup my site. I'm a technical person and can grasp most things fairly quickly, but on this the light bulb is taking a little while longer to fire-up 🙂 If my question wasn't total jibberish and you can help shed some light, I would be forever grateful. Thank you.
Technical SEO | | apmgsmith0 -
301 technical issue / sitemap being found in search
Hi I recently did some 301 redirects. But now when I type into the search results 'Kyocera black and white printers' my site map is coming up in the listings - does any have any advise as to why this may be happening and how to fix it? Please see image attached, thanks. 1XqHW.jpg
Technical SEO | | Socialdude0