Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Sitemaps. When compressed do you use the .gz file format or the (untidy looking, IMHO) .xml.gz format?
-
When submitting compressed sitemaps to Google I normally use the a file named sitemap.gz
A customer is banging on that his web guy says that sitemap.xml.gz is a better format.
Google spiders sitemap.gz just fine and in Webmaster Tools everything looks OK...
Interested to know other SEOmoz Pro's preferences here and also to check I haven't made an error that is going to bite me in the ass soon!
Over to you.
-
Thanks Big Bazza... I like the 'better' vs 'accepted' reasoning. Not too confrontational
-
Generally the .xml.gz format is the one stated in examples there are a few references to this here : http://www.sitemaps.org/protocol.php#index
Most sitemap generators that create both compressed and uncompressed sitemap files name them sitemap.xml and sitemap.xml.gz respectively. It also makes it clearer what the content of the zipped file is. I don't believe it is essential however, as you will direct tools such as google.com/webmasters to your xml sitemap - rather than expect it to find it of its own accord.
I always use the .xml.gz format when compressing. I would argue that (if both formats work) neither one is 'BETTER' than the other, rather one is more ACCEPTED than the other.
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
-
Move to new domain using Canonical Tag
At the moment, I am moving from olddomain.com (niche site) to the newdomain.com (multi-niche site). Due to some reasons, I do not want to use 301 right now and planning to use the canonical pointing to the new domain instead. Would Google rank the new site instead of the old site? From what I have learnt, the canonical tag lets Google know that which is the main source of the contents. Thank you very much!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | india-morocco0 -
Sitemaps: Best Practice
What should and what shouldn't go in the sitemap? In particular, pages like subscribe to our newsletter/ unsubscribe to our newsletter? Is there really any benefit in highlighting those pages to the SEs? Thanks for any advice/ anecdotes 🙂
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Fubra0 -
How important is the file extension in the URL for images?
I know that descriptive image file names are important for SEO. But how important is it to include .png, .jpg, .gif (or whatever file extension) in the url path? i.e. https://example.com/images/golden-retriever vs. https://example.com/images/golden-retriever.jpg Furthermore, since you can set the filename in the Content-Disposition response header, is there any need to include the descriptive filename in the URL path? Since I'm pulling most of our images from a database, it'd be much simpler to not care about simulating a filename, and just reference an image id in my templates. Example: 1. Browser requests GET /images/123456
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | dsbud
2. Server responds with image setting both Content-Disposition, and Link (canonical) headers Content-Disposition: inline; filename="golden-retriever"
Link: <https: 123456="" example.com="" images="">; rel="canonical"</https:>1 -
Using hreflang for international pages - is this how you do it?
My client is trying to achieve a global presence in select countries, and then track traffic from their international pages in Google Analytics. The content for the international pages is pretty much the same as for USA pages, but the form and a few other details are different due to how product licensing has to be set up. I don’t want to risk losing ranking for existing USA pages due to issues like duplicate content etc. What is the best way to approach this? This is my first foray into this and I’ve been scanning the MOZ topics but a number of the conversations are going over my head,so suggestions will need to be pretty simple 🙂 Is it a case of adding hreflang code to each page and creating different URLs for tracking. For example:
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Caro-O
URL for USA: https://company.com/en-US/products/product-name/
URL for Canada: https://company.com/en-ca/products/product-name /
URL for German Language Content: https://company.com/de/products/product-name /
URL for rest of the world: https://company.com/en/products/product-name /1 -
Sitemap generator which only includes canonical urls
Does anyone know of a 3rd party sitemap generator that will only include the canonical url's? Creating a sitemap with geo and sorting based parameters isn't the most ideal way to generate sitemaps. Please let me know if anyone has any ideas. Mind you we have hundreds of thousands of indexed url's and this can't be done with a simple text editor.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | recbrands0 -
Sitemaps during a migration - which is the best way of dealing with them?
Many SEOs I know simply upload the new sitemap once the new site is launched - some keep the old site's URLs on the new sitemap (for a while) to facilitate the migration - others upload both the old and the new website together, to support the migration. Which is the best way to proceed? Thanks, Luke
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | McTaggart0 -
Should I redirect my xml sitemap?
Hi Mozzers, We have recently rebranded with a new company name, and of course this necessitated us to relaunch our entire website onto a new domain. I watched the Moz video on how they changed domain, copying what they did pretty much to the letter. (Thank you, Moz for sharing this with the community!) It has gone incredibly smoothly. I told all my bosses that we may see a 40% reduction in traffic / conversions in the short term. In the event (and its still very early days) we have in fact seen a 15% increase in traffic and our new website is converting better than before so an all-round success! I was just wondering if you thought I should redirect my XML sitemap as well? So far I haven't, but despite us doing the change of address thing in webmaster tools, I can see Google processed the old sitemap xml after we did the change of address etc. What do you think? I know we've been very lucky with the outcome of this rebrand but I don't want to rest on my laurels or get tripped up later down the line. Thanks everyone! Amelia
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | CommT0 -
Is there a limit to images file names?
Hi, I have an eCommerce site with hundreds of product images. For management reasons files are named in length to have the product details in them.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BeytzNet
Is there a limit for a filename length before it is considered ambiguous or spammy etc.?
(it usually ranges 50-70 chars). Thanks0