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.
Can a XML sitemap index point to other sitemaps indexes?
-
We have a massive site that is having some issue being fully crawled due to some of our site architecture and linking.
Is it possible to have a XML sitemap index point to other sitemap indexes rather than standalone XML sitemaps?
Has anyone done this successfully? Based upon the description here:
http://sitemaps.org/protocol.php#index it seems like it should be possible.
Thanks in advance for your help!
-
It's easy to implement. I've broken the content up into multiple sitemaps before as a diagnostic tool as well, to see which sections of the site are getting most of their pages indexed and which sections of the site have few pages indexed.
-
You only need to use a sitemap index file if you have over 50,000 URL's. So if your site is that massive, then yes you'll want to do this. Basically all you do is create a bunch of sitemaps. You can then create a sitemap index file that is just a list of links to those sitemaps. You then submit your sitemap index file to google or each sitemap individually. Just glancing at your link it is pretty darn clear, there's not much to it.
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
-
Can I add external links to my sitemap?
Hi, I'm integrating with a service that adds 3rd-party images/videos (owned by them, hosted on their server) to my site. For instance, the service might have tons of pictures/videos of cars; and then when I integrate, I can show my users these pictures/videos about cars I might be selling. But I'm wondering how to build out the sitemap--I would like to include reference to these images/videos, so Google knows I'm using lots of multimedia. How's the most white-hat way to do that? Can I add external links to my sitemap pointing to these images/videos hosted on a different server, or is that frowned upon? Thanks in advance.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SEOdub0 -
My site shows 503 error to Google bot, but can see the site fine. Not indexing in Google. Help
Hi, This site is not indexed on Google at all. http://www.thethreehorseshoespub.co.uk Looking into it, it seems to be giving a 503 error to the google bot. I can see the site I have checked source code Checked robots Did have a sitemap param. but removed it for testing GWMT is showing 'unreachable' if I submit a site map or fetch Any ideas on how to remove this error? Many thanks in advance
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SolveWebMedia0 -
Multilingual Sitemaps
Hey there, I have a site with many languages. So here are my questions concerning the sitemaps. The correct way of creating a sitemap for a multilingual site is as followed ( by the official blog of Google ) <urlset xmlns="</span>http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9" xmlns:xhtml="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> http://www.example.com/loc> <xhtml:link rel="alternate" hreflang="en" href="</span>http://www.example.com/"/> <xhtml:link rel="alternate" hreflang="de" href="</span>http://www.example.com/de"/> <xhtml:link rel="alternate" hreflang="fr" href="</span>http://www.example.com/fr"/><a href=" http:="" www.example.com="" fr"="" target="_blank"></xhtml:link><a href=" http:="" www.example.com="" de"="" target="_blank"></xhtml:link><a href=" http:="" www.example.com="" "="" target="_blank"></xhtml:link><a href=" http:="" www.sitemaps.org="" schemas="" sitemap="" 0.9"="" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"></urlset> **So here is my first question. My site has over 200.000 pages that all of them support around 5-6 languages. Am I suppose to do this example 200.000 times?****My second question is. My root domain is www.example.com but this one redirects with 301 to www.example.com/en should the sitemap be at ****www.example.com/sitemap.xmlorwww.example.com/en/sitemap.xml ???****My third question is as followed. On WMT do I submit my sitemap in all versions of my site? I have all my languages there.**Thanks in advance for taking the time to respond to this thread and by creating it I hope many people will solve their own questions.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Angelos_Savvaidis0 -
How can I prevent duplicate pages being indexed because of load balancer (hosting)?
The site that I am optimising has a problem with duplicate pages being indexed as a result of the load balancer (which is required and set up by the hosting company). The load balancer passes the site through to 2 different URLs: www.domain.com www2.domain.com Some how, Google have indexed 2 of the same URLs (which I was obviously hoping they wouldn't) - the first on www and the second on www2. The hosting is a mirror image of each other (www and www2), meaning I can't upload a robots.txt to the root of www2.domain.com disallowing all. Also, I can't add a canonical script into the website header of www2.domain.com pointing the individual URLs through to www.domain.com etc. Any suggestions as to how I can resolve this issue would be greatly appreciated!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | iam-sold0 -
Removing index.php
I have question for the community and whether or not this is a good or bad idea. I currently have a Joomla site that displays www.domain.com/index.php in all the URLs with the exception of the home page. I have read that it's better to not have index.php showing in the URL at all. Does it really matter if I have index.php in my URL? I've read that it is a bad practice. I am thinking about installing the sh404SEF component on my site and removing the index.php. However, I rank pretty high for the keywords I want in Google, Bing and Yahoo. All of the URLs that show up in the searches have index.php as part of the URL. Has anyone ever used sh404SEF to remove the index.php and how did you overcome not loosing your search engine links? I don't want an existing search showing www.domain.com/index.php/sales and it not linking to the correct page which would now be www.domain.com/sales. I guess I could insert the proper redirects in the htaccess file. But I was hoping to avoid having every page of my site in the htaccess file for redirecting. Any help or advice appreciated.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MedGroupMedia0 -
How important is the optional <priority>tag in an XML sitemap of your website? Can this help search engines understand the hierarchy of a website?</priority>
Can the <priority>tag be used to tell search engines the hierarchy of a site or should it be used to let search engines know which priority to we want pages to be indexed in?</priority>
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mycity4kids0 -
XML Sitemap on another domain
Hi, We've rebuilt our website and created a better sitemap index structure. There's a good chance that we not be able to append the XML files to existing site for technical reasons (don't get me started). I'm reaching out because I'm wondering if can we place the XML files on another website or subdomain? I know this is not best practice and probably very grey but I'm looking for alternatives. If there answer is DON'T DO IT let me know too. Thx
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | WMCA0 -
XML Sitemap index within a XML sitemaps index
We have a similar problem to http://www.seomoz.org/q/can-a-xml-sitemap-index-point-to-other-sitemaps-indexes Can a XML sitemap index point to other sitemaps indexes? According to the "Unique Doll Clothing" example on this link, it seems possible http://www.seomoz.org/blog/multiple-xml-sitemaps-increased-indexation-and-traffic Can someone share an XML Sitemap index within a XML sitemaps index example? We are looking for the format to implement the same on our website.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Lakshdeep0