Skip to content
    Moz logo Menu open Menu close
    • Products
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Pro Home
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Home
      • STAT
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Home
      • Compare SEO Products
      • Moz Data
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis
      • Keyword Explorer
      • Link Explorer
      • Competitive Research
      • MozBar
      • More Free SEO Tools
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
      • SEO Learning Center
      • Moz Academy
      • MozCon
      • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers
      • Agency Solutions
      • Enterprise Solutions
      • Small Business Solutions
      • The Moz Story
      • New Releases
    • Log in
    • Log out
    • Products
      • Moz Pro

        Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

      • Moz Local

        Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

      • STAT

        SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

      • Moz API

        Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

      • Compare SEO Products

        See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

      • Moz Data

        Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis

        Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

      • Keyword Explorer

        Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

      • Link Explorer

        Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

      • Competitive Research

        Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

      • MozBar

        See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

      • More Free SEO Tools

        Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO

        The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

      • SEO Learning Center

        Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

      • On-Demand Webinars

        Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

      • How-To Guides

        Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

      • Moz Academy

        Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

      • MozCon

        Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
      Moz API

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

      Find your plan
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers

        Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

      • Small Business Solutions

        Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

      • Agency Solutions

        Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

      • Enterprise Solutions

        Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

      • The Moz Story

        Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

      • New Releases

        Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

      Surface actionable competitive intel
      New Feature

      Surface actionable competitive intel

      Learn More
    • Log in
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Dashboard
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Dashboard
      • Moz Academy
    • Avatar
      • Moz Home
      • Notifications
      • Account & Billing
      • Manage Users
      • Community Profile
      • My Q&A
      • My Videos
      • Log Out

    The Moz Q&A Forum

    • Forum
    • Questions
    • Users
    • Ask the Community

    Welcome to the Q&A Forum

    Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

    1. Home
    2. SEO Tactics
    3. On-Page Optimization
    4. How do we handle sitemaps in robots.txt when multiple domains point to same physical location?

    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.

    How do we handle sitemaps in robots.txt when multiple domains point to same physical location?

    On-Page Optimization
    2
    8
    9309
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as question
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
    • nordicnetproducts
      nordicnetproducts last edited by

      we have www.mysite.net, www.mysite.se, www.mysite.fi and so on. all of these domains point to the same physical location on our webserver, and we replace texts given back to client depending on which domain he/she requested.

      My problem is this: How do i configure sitemaps in robots.txt when robots.txt is used by multiple domains? If I for instance put the rows

      Sitemap: http://www.mysite.net/sitemapNet.xml
      Sitemap: http://www.mysite.net/sitemapSe.xml

      in robots.txt, would that result in some cross submission error?

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • nordicnetproducts
        nordicnetproducts @nordicnetproducts last edited by

        Thanks for your help René!

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • ReneReinholdt
          ReneReinholdt @nordicnetproducts last edited by

          yup 🙂

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
          • nordicnetproducts
            nordicnetproducts @nordicnetproducts last edited by

            Yes, I mean GTW of course :).

            A folder for each site would definitely make some things easier, but it would also mean more work every time we need to republish the site or make configurations.

            Did I understand that googlelink correctly in that if we have verified ownership in GWT for all involved domains cross-site submission in robots.txt was okay? I guess google will think its okay anyway.

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • ReneReinholdt
              ReneReinholdt @nordicnetproducts last edited by

              actually google has the answer, right here: http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=75712

              I always try to do what google recommends even though something might work just as well.. just to be on the safe side 🙂

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
              • ReneReinholdt
                ReneReinholdt @nordicnetproducts last edited by

                you can't submit a sitemap in GA so I'm guessing you mean GWT 🙂

                Whether or not you put it in the robots.txt shouldn't be a problem. since in each sitemap, the urls would look something like this:

                Sitemap 1:<url><loc>http:/yoursite.coim/somepage.html</loc></url>

                Sitemap 2:<url><loc>http:/yoursite.dk/somepage.html</loc></url>

                I see no need to filter what sitemap is shown to the crawler. If your .htaccess is set-up to redirect traffic from the TLD (top level domain eg .dk .com ex.) to the correct pages. Then the sitemaps shouldn't be a problem.

                The best solution would be: to have a web in web. (a folder for each site on the server) and then have the htaccess redirect to the right folder. in this folder you have a robots.txt and a sitemap for that specific site. that way all your problems will be gone in a jiffy. It will be just like managing different 3 sites. even though it isn't.

                I am no ninja with .htaccess files but I understand the technology behind it and know what you can do in them. for a how to do it guide, ask google thats what I allways do when I need to goof around in the htaccess. I hope it made sense. 🙂

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                • nordicnetproducts
                  nordicnetproducts @ReneReinholdt last edited by

                  Thanks for your response René!

                  Thing is we already submit the sitemaps in google analytics, but this SEO company we hired wants us to put the sitemaps in robots.txt as well.

                  The .htaccess idea sounds good, as long as google or someone else dont think we are doing some cross-site submission error (as described here http://www.sitemaps.org/protocol.php#submit_robots)

                  ReneReinholdt nordicnetproducts 5 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • ReneReinholdt
                    ReneReinholdt last edited by

                    I see no need to use robots.txt for that. use Google and Bings webmaster tools. Here you have each domain registered  and can submit sitemaps to them for each domain.

                    If you want to make sure that your sitemaps are not crawled by a bot for a wrong language. I would set it up in the .htaccess to test for the entrance domain and make sure to redirect to the right file. Any bot will enter a site just like a browser so it needs to obey the server. so if the server tells it to go somewhere it will.

                    the robots.txt can't by it self, do what you want. The server can however. But in my opinion using bing and google webmaster tools should do the trick.

                    nordicnetproducts 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                    • 1 / 1
                    • First post
                      Last post

                    Got a burning SEO question?

                    Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


                    Start my free trial


                    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.

                    • See all categories

                    Related Questions

                    • UWPCE

                      Multiple H1s and Header Tags in Hero/Banner Images

                      I work on education websites, and our sites are being flagged by SEO and accessibility checkers for having multiple H1s. The home pages have the site name as an h3 in the hero image, and an aspirational headline (think: Be Like Mike) as an H1. The sub-pages have two H1s: one on the site name in the banner image, and the other on the page title. Note that the site name is very keyword-rich. If we were to remove the H1 and H3 tags from the hero/banner images, would it do any SEO harm? At the same time, we’d rewrite the H1 on the home page to be more keyword-focused. Any other options? I also read that it’s OK to have multiple H1s as long as it’s clear which H1 belongs to the heading area and which one belongs to the body area of the page. Thanks in advance!

                      On-Page Optimization | | UWPCE
                      0
                    • InternetRep

                      Does Google penalize you for reindexing multiple URLS?

                      Hello, Just a quick, question! I was wanting to know if multiple page indexing (site overhaul) could cause a drop in organic traffic ranking or be penalized by Google for submitting multiple pages at one time. Thanks

                      On-Page Optimization | | InternetRep
                      0
                    • gaben

                      How does Google handle read more tags in Wordpress

                      Hi Everyone I am wondering how Google handles the read more tag in Wordpress. I pasted the link to a blog post on Google and found nothing (domain.com/post#readmore). Then I paste the version without #readmore (domain.com/post) and found that Google indexed the page but with the option to click "read more" to read it. The full blog post is not in their index, just the version asking you to read more. Is this because Google hasn't gotten to it or is Google ignoring it. I am not sure but ideally I rather have the full blog post indexed, not the read more version. I am curious to whether this will cause duplicate content issues. What are your experience with this and is it advisable to use an alternate method for read more. Maybe with a Wordpress plugin. Thanks in advance.

                      On-Page Optimization | | gaben
                      0
                    • kevinbp

                      My main domain is missing in google, subdomain appears instead.

                      I have two SEO optimised pages in my website targeting different keywords www.example.com                 <-- main selling page (Pocket Guitar | Guitar Instruments)
                      www.example.com/index/       <-- 2nd selling page (Guitar Australia | Guitar Perth) Q: At first my website "www.example.com" is ranking on google first page. Suddenly it disappears and the link "www.example.com/index/" appears instead. No matter what i search, "Pocket Guitar | Guitar Instruments | Guitar Australia | Guitar Perth", the link www.example.com/index/ appears on the front page instead of www.example.com. What is happening to my main domain? Should i be worried?

                      On-Page Optimization | | kevinbp
                      0
                    • GRIP-SEO

                      How will it effect SEO to have multiple h1 tags on a page?

                      I have a client who recieved this advice from his marketing consultant: "If there are multiple h1 tags on a page, this can confuse Google and it may have a negative impact on the keyword rankings. If you could ask your web developer to go in and remove the h1 tags on the header images that would be helpful. This way it will be easier for Google to index your site and will help your keyword rankings." How will it effect SEO to have multiple h1 tags on a page?

                      On-Page Optimization | | GRIP-SEO
                      0
                    • Webat

                      What is the best way to format an xml sitemap?

                      I am wondering if the urls should be in alphabetical order or if they should be set out in a way that reflects the sites hierarchy? Thanks.

                      On-Page Optimization | | Webat
                      0
                    • CMoore85

                      Transferring authority from one domain to another

                      My dilemma For example: If I have a website ranking at number 11 for (Keyword) and there is a site named www.(Keyword).com ranking at number 12 for (Keyword), if I were to buy this site and redirect to my own site, would this be at all beneficial? Any advice would be much appreciated!

                      On-Page Optimization | | CMoore85
                      0
                    • vibelingo

                      Www1 and www domain

                      hi, I have a client who has an e-commerce business. My client does not want to fill the pages with too much content and has set up a www1 version with the same domain-name as the www. The plan is to create a lot of content and push www1 in ranking and then sending users (via links) to the www for ordering. Although there will be no duplicate content published on www and www1 this seems like an odd strategy, especially since the www already has a good page rank, and I'm not sure about how engines view a www.domain.com and www1domain.com situation even with unique content in each. Any thoughts?

                      On-Page Optimization | | vibelingo
                      0

                    Get started with Moz Pro!

                    Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                    Start my free trial
                    Products
                    • Moz Pro
                    • Moz Local
                    • Moz API
                    • Moz Data
                    • STAT
                    • Product Updates
                    Moz Solutions
                    • SMB Solutions
                    • Agency Solutions
                    • Enterprise Solutions
                    Free SEO Tools
                    • Domain Authority Checker
                    • Link Explorer
                    • Keyword Explorer
                    • Competitive Research
                    • Brand Authority Checker
                    • Local Citation Checker
                    • MozBar Extension
                    • MozCast
                    Resources
                    • Blog
                    • SEO Learning Center
                    • Help Hub
                    • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                    • How-to Guides
                    • Moz Academy
                    • API Docs
                    About Moz
                    • About
                    • Team
                    • Careers
                    • Contact
                    Why Moz
                    • Case Studies
                    • Testimonials
                    Get Involved
                    • Become an Affiliate
                    • MozCon
                    • Webinars
                    • Practical Marketer Series
                    • MozPod
                    Connect with us

                    Contact the Help team

                    Join our newsletter
                    Moz logo
                    © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                    • Accessibility
                    • Terms of Use
                    • Privacy

                    Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.