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.
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
-
How to fix site breadcrumbs on mobile google search
For past one month, I have been doing some research on how to fix this issue on my website but all my efforts didn't work out I really need help on this issue because I'm worried about this I was hoping that Google will cache or understand the structure of my site and correct the error the breadcrumb is working correctly on desktop but not shown on mobile. For Example take a look at : https://www.xclusivepop.com/omah-lay-bad-influence/
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Ericrodrigo0 -
Is this campaign of spammy links to non-existent pages damaging my site?
My site is built in Wordpress. Somebody has built spammy pharma links to hundreds of non-existent pages. I don't know whether this was inspired by malice or an attempt to inject spammy content. Many of the non-existent pages have the suffix .pptx. These now all return 403s. Example: https://www.101holidays.co.uk/tazalis-10mg.pptx A smaller number of spammy links point to regular non-existent URLs (not ending in .pptx). These are given 302s by Wordpress to my homepage. I've disavowed all domains linking to these URLs. I have not had a manual action or seen a dramatic fall in Google rankings or traffic. The campaign of spammy links appears to be historical and not ongoing. Questions: 1. Do you think these links could be damaging search performance? If so, what can be done? Disavowing each linking domain would be a huge task. 2. Is 403 the best response? Would 404 be better? 3. Any other thoughts or suggestions? Thank you for taking the time to read and consider this question. Mark
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | MarkHodson0 -
Robots.txt file in Shopify - Collection and Product Page Crawling Issue
Hi, I am working on one big eCommerce store which have more then 1000 Product. we just moved platform WP to Shopify getting noindex issue. when i check robots.txt i found below code which is very confusing for me. **I am not getting meaning of below tags.** Disallow: /collections/+ Disallow: /collections/%2B Disallow: /collections/%2b Disallow: /blogs/+ Disallow: /blogs/%2B Disallow: /blogs/%2b I can understand that my robots.txt disallows SEs to crawling and indexing my all product pages. ( collection/*+* ) Is this the query which is affecting the indexing product pages? Please explain me how this robots.txt work in shopify and once my page crawl and index by google.com then what is use of Disallow: Thanks.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | HuptechWebseo0 -
Should I delete older posts on my site that are lower quality?
Hey guys! Thanks in advance for thinking through this with me. You're appreciated! I have 350 pieces of Cornerstone Content that has been a large focus of mine over the last couple years. They're incredibly important to my business. That said, less experienced me did what I thought was best by hiring a freelance writer to create extra content to interlink them and add relevancy to the overall site. Looking back through everything, I am starting to realize that this extra content, which now makes up 1/3 my site, is at about 65%-70% quality AND only gets a total of about 250 visitors per month combined -- for all 384 articles. Rather than spending the next 9 months and investing in a higher quality content creator to revamp them, I am seeing the next best option to remove them. From a pros perspective, do you guys think removing these 384 lower quality articles is my best option and focusing my efforts on a better UX, faster site, and continual upgrading of the 350 pieces of Cornerstone Content? I'm honestly at a point where I am ready to cut my losses, admit my mistakes, and swear to publish nothing but gold moving forward. I'd love to hear how you would approach this situation! Thanks 🙂
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | ryj0 -
Is it wrong to have the same page represented twice in the Nav?
Hi Mozzers, I have a client that have 3 pages represented twice in the Nav. There are not duplicates since they land with the same URL. It seems odd to have this situation but I guess it make sense for my client to have those represented twice since these pages could fall into multiple categories? Is it a bad practice for SEO or is it a waste to have those in the NAV? Should I require to eliminate the extras? Thanks!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Ideas-Money-Art0 -
Noindexing Thin Content Pages: Good or Bad?
If you have massive pages with super thin content (such as pagination pages) and you noindex them, once they are removed from googles index (and if these pages aren't viewable to the user and/or don't get any traffic) is it smart to completely remove them (404?) or is there any valid reason that they should be kept? If you noindex them, should you keep all URLs in the sitemap so that google will recrawl and notice the noindex tag? If you noindex them, and then remove the sitemap, can Google still recrawl and recognize the noindex tag on their own?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | WebServiceConsulting.com0 -
Can a Page Title be all UPPER CASE?
My clients wants to use UPPER CASE for all his page titles. Is this okay? Does Google react badly to this?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | petewinter0 -
Would linking out to a gambling/casino site, harm my site and the other sites it links out to?
I have been emailed asking if I sell links on one of my sites. The person wants to link out to slotsofvegas[dot]com or similar. Should I be concerned about linking out to this and does it reduce the link value to any of the other sites that the site links out to? Thanks, Mark
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Markus1111