Not All Submitted URLs in Sitemap Get Indexed
-
Hey Guys,
I just recognized, that of about 20% of my submitted URL's within the sitemap don't get indexed, at least when I check in the webmaster tools. There is of about 20% difference between the submitted and indexed URLs. However, as far as I can see I don't get within webmaster tools the information, which specific URLs are not indexed from the sitemap, right?
Therefore I checked every single page in the sitemap manually by putting site:"URL" into google and every single page of the sitemap shows up. So in reality every page should be indexed, but why does webmaster tools shows something different?
Thanks for your help on this
Cheers
-
Thanks Dan, but I have registered the right URL (http).
However today I have again 100% indexed from the submitted URLs (changed nothing). Really Crazy.
Cheers,
Heiko
-
This can happen if you don't have the correct version of your URL registered in webmaster tools, so something to check
-
Hi There
One thing to check - do you have the exact version of domain registered in webmaster tools? So www or non-www and http or httpS? This has to be exact, webmaster tools considers them all different sites and you can get limited data if the wrong one is registered.
That would be the biggest cause of discrepancy. If this is not the case, there are many times Webmaster Tools data can lag behind, or be different than the index. I would go with what you see in actual Google searches though as the "final answer".
-
I get the same thing. Nobody on here seems to know the answer (I asked a similar question in the last week or so) - if the pages are there when you do a manual search then I wouldn't sweat it. I have taken the view that it's not worth worrying about!
Good luck
Amelia
-
I didn't change the sitemap in the last 4 months. At the beginning the numbers match exactly, so submitted and indexed URLs where the same. But this week I recognized, that now of about 20% are not indexed any more. So I already got confused, but the manual check showed that everything is ok.
However, I just would like to know, why there is this difference in webmaster tools....
Cheers
-
this is clear, but has nothing to do with my original question. I just wanted to know why webmaster tools doesn't display the right number of indexed pages from the sitemap. It would just be the easiest way to recognize when some pages will get de-indexed for whatever reason.
-
Hi there
This is pretty common. Google sometimes shows varying numbers in Webmaster Tools and what actually appears in the index. When did you submit your sitemap?
Here are some reasons that Google may not index all of your pages.
Check your robots.txt to be sure, but give yourself a bit of time for the indexing number in WMT to update. The good news is that you are seeing your pages in search - so that's a positive.
I would also check to see if you have any duplicate or thin content on the website, dynamic URLs in your sitemap, check how deep your pages go (this is especially important due to crawl budgets), and also your website's canonical tag situation.
These are some things I would look into. Hope this helps! Good luck!
-
sitemap does not ensure you are in the index. they just inform the search engine about your site.
in fact Bing suggest you only put hidden pages and important pages in sitemap.
IMO they are overrated unless you have something special to inform them of, or a very large site , they will find it crawling your site normaly
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
-
Old url is still indexed
A couple of months ago we requested a change of address in Search console. The new, correct url is already indexed. Yet when we search the old url (with site:www.) we find that the old url is still indexed. in Google Webmaster Tools the amount of indexed pages is reduced to 1. Is there another way to remove old urls?
Technical SEO | | conversal0 -
Video sitemap
Hello, I'm no Wordpress developer so need a little help please. I have manually created a video sitemap. It needs to be uploaded to the website. Where should the .xml file be uploaded onto Wordpress? Which directory? Is it Ok to add the code to a notepad file and upload? I'm trying to avoid the plugin route if possible. Thanks
Technical SEO | | AL123al0 -
What are the negative implications of listing URLs in a sitemap that are then blocked in the robots.txt?
In running a crawl of a client's site I can see several URLs listed in the sitemap that are then blocked in the robots.txt file. Other than perhaps using up crawl budget, are there any other negative implications?
Technical SEO | | richdan0 -
XML Sitemap and unwanted URL parameters
We currently don't have an XML sitemap for our site. I generated one using Screaming Frog and it looks ok, but it also contains my tracking url parameters (ref=), which I don't want Google to use, as specified in GWT. Cleaning it will require time and effort which I currently don't have. I also think that having one could help us on Bing. So my question is: Is it better to submit a "so-so" sitemap than having none at all, or the risks are just too high? Could you explain what could go wrong? Thanks !
Technical SEO | | jfmonfette0 -
URL Understanding -
Hello everyone! Can anyone help me understanding this url? Product.asp?PID=1236 cheers
Technical SEO | | PremioOscar0 -
Friendly URLs
Hi, I have an important news site and I am trying to implement user friendly URLs. Now, when you click a news in the homepage, it goes to a redirect.php page and then goes to a friendly url. the question is, It is better to have the friendly URL in the first link or it is the same for the robot having this in the finally url? Thanks
Technical SEO | | informatica8100 -
URL restructure and phasing out HTML sitemap
Hi SEOMozzies, Love the Q&A resource and already found lots of useful stuff too! I just started as an in-house SEO at a retailer and my first main challenge is to tidy up the complex URL structures and remove the ugly sub sitemap approach currently used. I already found a number of suggestions but it looks like I am dealing with a number of challenges that I need to resolve in a single release. So here is the current setup: The website is an ecommerce site (department store) with around 30k products. We are using multi select navigation (non Ajax). The main website uses a third party search engine to power the multi select navigation, that search engine has a very ugly URL structure. For example www.domain.tld/browse?location=1001/brand=100/color=575&size=1&various other params, or for multi select URL’s www.domain.tld/browse?location=1001/brand=100,104,506/color=575&size=1 &various other non used URL params. URL’s are easily up to 200 characters long and non-descriptive at all to our users. Many of these type of URL’s are indexed by search engines (we currently have 1.2 million of those URL’s indexed including session id’s and all other nasty URL params) Next to this the site is using a “sub site” that is sort of optimized for SEO, not 100% sure this is cloaking but it smells like it. It has a simplified navigation structure and better URL structure for products. Layout is similair to our main site but all complex HTMLelements like multi select, large top navigations menu's etc are all removed. Many of these links are indexed by search engines and rank higher than links from our main website. The URL structure is www.domain.tld/1/optimized-url .Currently 64.000 of these URL’s are indexed. We have links to this sub site in the footer of every page but a normal customer would never reach this site unless they come from organic search. Once a user lands on one of these pages we try to push him back to the main site as quickly as possible. My planned approach to improve this: 1.) Tidy up the URL structure in the main website (e.g. www.domain.tld/women/dresses and www.domain.tld/diesel-red-skirt-4563749. I plan to use Solution 2 as described in http://www.seomoz.org/blog/building-faceted-navigation-that-doesnt-suck to block multi select URL’s from being indexed and would like to use the URL param “location” as an indicator for search engines to ignore the link. A risk here is that all my currently indexed URL (1.2 million URL’s) will be blocked immediately after I put this live. I cannot redirect those URL’s to the optimized URL’s as the old URL’s should still be accessible. 2.) Remove the links to the sub site (www.domain.tld/1/optimized-url) from the footer and redirect (301) all those URL’s to the newly created SEO friendly product URL’s. URL’s that cannot be matched since there is no similar catalog location in the main website will be redirected (301) to our homepage. I wonder if this is a correct approach and if it would be better to do this in a phased way rather than the currently planned big bang? Any feedback would be highly appreciated, also let me know if things are not clear. Thanks! Chris
Technical SEO | | eCommerceSEO0 -
Weird Indexing Question
Google has indexed mysite.com/ and mysitem.com/\/ (no idea why). If you click on the /%5C? URL it takes you to mysite.com//. I have a rel=canonical tag on it that goes to mysite.com/ but I was wondering if there was another way to correct the issue.
Technical SEO | | BryanPhelps-BigLeapWeb0