Should I submit a sitemap for a site with dynamic pages?
-
I have a coupon website (http://couponeasy.com)
Being a coupon website, my content is always keeps changing (as new coupons are added and expired deals are removed) automatically.I wish to create a sitemap but I realised that there is not much point in creating a sitemap for all pages as they will be removed sooner or later and/or are canonical.
I have about 8-9 pages which are static and hence I can include them in sitemap.
Now the question is....
If I create the sitemap for these 9 pages and submit it to google webmaster, will the google crawlers stop indexing other pages?
NOTE: I need to create the sitemap for getting expanded sitelinks.
-
Hi Anuj -
I think you are operating from a very false assumption that is going to hurt your organic traffic (I suspect it has already).
The XML sitemap is one of the the very best ways to tell the search engines about new content on your website. Therefore, by not putting your new coupons in the sitemap, you are not giving the search engines one of the strongest signals possible that new content is there.
Of course, you have to automate your sitemap and have it update as often as possible. Depending on the size of your site and therefore the processing time, you could do it hourly, every 4 hours, something like that. If you need recommendations for automated sitemap tools, let me know. I should also point out that you should put the frequency that the URLs are updated (you should keep static URLs for even your coupons if possible). This will be a big win for you.
Finally, if you want to make sure your static pages are always indexed, or want to keep an eye on different types of coupons, you can create separate sitemaps under your main sitemap.xml and segment by type. So static-pages-sitemap.xml, type-1-sitemap.xml, etc. This way you can monitor indexation by type.
Hope this helps! Let me know if you need an audit or something like that. Sounds like there are some easy wins!
John
-
Hello Ahuj,
To answer your final question first:
Crawlers will not stop until they encounter something they cannot read or are told not to continue beyond a certain point. So your site will be updated in the index upon each crawl.
I did some quick browsing and it sounds like an automated sitemap might be your best option. Check out this link on Moz Q&A:
https://moz.com/community/q/best-practices-for-adding-dynamic-url-s-to-xml-sitemap
There are tools out there that will help with the automation process, which will update hourly/daily to help crawlers find your dynamic pages. The tool suggested on this particular blog can be found at:
http://www.xml-sitemaps.com/standalone-google-sitemap-generator.html
I have never used it, but it is worth looking into as a solution to your problem. Another good suggestion I saw was to place all removed deals in an archive page and make them unavailable for purchase/collection. This sounds like a solution that would minimize future issues surrounding 404's, etc.
Hope this helps!
Rob
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
-
Why is this site ranked #1 in Google with such a low DA (is DA not important anymore?)
Hi Guys, Would you mind helping me with the below please? I would like to get your view on it and why Google ranks a really new domain name #1 with super low domain authority? Or is Domain Authority useless now in Google? It seems like from the last update that John Mueller said that they do not use Domain Authority so is Moz Domain Authority tool not to take seriously or am I missing something? There is a new rehab in Thailand called https://thebeachrehab.com/ (Domain authority 13)It's ranked #1 in Google.co.th for these phrases: drug rehab thailand but also for addiction rehab thailand. So when checking the backlink profile it got merely 21 backlinks from really low DA sites (and some of those are really spammy or not related). Now there are lots of sites in this industry here which have a lot higher domain authority and have been around for years. The beach rehab is maybe only like 6 months old. Here are three domains which have been around for many years and have much higher DA and also more relevant content. These are just 3 samples of many others... <cite class="iUh30">https://www.thecabinchiangmai.com (Domain Authority 52)</cite>https://www.hope-rehab-center-thailand.com/ (Domain Authority 40)https://www.dararehab.com (Domain Authority 32) These three sites got lots of high DA backlinks (DA 90++) from strong media links like time.com, theguardian.com, telegraph.co.uk etc. (especially thecabinchiangmai.com) but the other 2 got lots of solid backlinks from really high DA sites. So when looking at the content, thebeachrehab.com has less content as well. Can anyone have a look and let me know your thoughts why Google picks a brand new site, with DA 13 and little content in the top compared to competition? I do not see the logic in this? Cheers
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | igniterman75
John0 -
Unlisted (hidden) pages
I just had a client say they were advised by a friend to use 'a bunch of unlisted (hidden) pages'. Isn't this seriously black hat?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | muzzmoz0 -
How to stop google bot from crawling spammy injected pages by hacker?
Hello, Please help me. Our one of website is under attack by hacker once again. They have injected spammy URL and google is indexing, but we could not find these pages on our website. These all are 404 Pages. Our website is not secured. No HTTPS Our website is using wordpress CMS Thanks
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | ShahzadAhmed0 -
Competitors with duplicate sites for backlinks
Hello all, In the last few months, my company has seen some keywords we historically rank well for fall off the first page, and there are a couple competitors that have appeared that use backlinks from seemingly the same site. For fairness, our site has slow page load speeds that we are working on changing, as well as not being mobile friendly yet. The sites that are ranking are mobile friendly and load fast, but we have heaps of other words still ranking well, and I'm more curious about this methodology. For example, these two pages: http://whiteboards.com.au/
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | JustinBSLW
http://www.glasswhiteboards.com.au/ In OSE, glasswhiteboards has the majority of links from whiteboards, and the content between the sites is the same. My page has higher domain authority & page authority, but less backlinks. However, if you take away the backlinks from the duplicate site, they are the same. Isn't this type of content supposed to be flagged? My question is about whether this kind of similar site on different domains is a good idea to build links, as all my research shows that it's poor in the long run, but it seems to be working with these guys. Another group of sites that has been killing us uses this same method, with multiple sites that look the same that all link to each other to build up backlinks. These sites do have different content. It seems instead of building different categories within their own site, they have purchased multiple domains that act as their categories. Here's just a few: http://www.lockablenoticeboards.com.au/
http://www.snapperframes.com/
http://www.snapperdisplay.com.au/
http://www.light-box.com.au/
http://www.a-frame-signs.com.au/
http://www.posterhangers.com.au/0 -
Seeking Top Notch Marketing Company with experience in growing sites post manual penalty
Does anyone know of a company who has direct experience with growing websites AFTER a manual link penalty has been lifted? Any referrals would be great!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | WebServiceConsulting.com0 -
Some pages of my website http://goo.gl/1vGZv stopped crawling in Google
hi , i have 5 years old website and some page of my website http://goo.gl/1vGZv stopped indexing in Google . I have asked Google webmaster to remove low quality link via disavow tool . What to do ?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | unitedworld0 -
My ranking dropped 3 pages on 18 november 2012
Hi There my site ranking dropped suddenly today for my main keywords such as security companies in london and security services in london from first page to 4th-5th page. these keywords were ranked on homepage http://www.armstrongsecurity.co.uk/ other keywords from some internal pages, such as this one http://www.armstrongsecurity.co.uk/security-services/event-security-london.html theygot hit slightly and went couple of listings down the road for event security london, event security companies london as well. same slight hitting happened on this page for main keywords http://www.armstrongsecurity.co.uk/bodyguard-for-hire-london.html can anyone help me, how to get the rankings back? my site authority is around 60 which is far better than most sites ranking higher than me now. these are some problems that i understand so far. keyword rich anchor text link profile for my main keywords over optimised pages let me know if anything you might find suspicious on my site that i can fix either on site or in my link profile. looking forward to your help. thanks gill
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | spciuk0 -
Could a sitewide footer EXACT MATCH anchor text link hurt or potentially penalize a site?
I am pretty sure this would hurt rankings yet I just want another's opinion on it. Would a sitewide footer link with exact match keyword anchor text to the page you want to rank for your main keyword hurt you? Basically if it were a link to the homepage, yet you wanted to make the anchor text your main objective keyword, would it hurt to have this in the footer along with the logo link at the top of a page that is just "home" anchor text?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | jbster130