XML sitemap latest best practices?
-
If anyone optimised their sitemap recently and would like to share some tips it would be much appreciated:-)
Cheers
-
Yes you can not force indexing it is always up to the search engine.
In a small site a sitemap is next to useless really. sitemaps help the search engine find and decide what to crawl. in a small site with all pages linked its going to find them anyhow. in a large site it could be a good thing to show what has changed, where to find new links and maybe pages that are not linked.
-
Hi Alan,
Nice answer - I have a large site we are sorting the XML sitemap and is in 3 languages. You say only include the important pages - does this mean Bing will index the other pages if it feels like it - i.e. you cannot force it to index/update?
Also I have have a question about XML sitemaps if you have a moment to have a look - http://moz.com/community/q/xml-sitemaps-how-to-create-the-perfect-xml-sitemap
Cheers
-
i dont think that matters, but keep it honest, bing makes a lot of noise about losing trust in your sitemap, canonical tags, 301's and the like if they are not used correctly.
Meaning they will not believe the things you do right if you are doing it wrong elsewhere in the site.
-
Thanks Alan!
Do you think the top converting pages and the pages i potentially want to rank for should be included at the top of the sitemap?
Cheers
-
I can tell you that Bing is very strict with the sitemap. they accept only a very small margin of error.
They say not to include every page in your site, just the important pages, if a small site them this does not matter.
All dates should be true, no 404’s now 301’s only 200’s
Keep it updated and accurate and you should get plenty of love from Bing.
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
-
Exact keyword match for meta title and h1 what is best practice?
How exact should my meta titles and H1 one be compare to the keyword you wish to rank on. Eksample. When I do a research with google AdWords the keyword tool shows me: 260 monthly searches for house for rent Hua Hin 140 monthly searches for Hua Hin house for rent 70 monthly searches for House for rent in Hua Hin The first two includes the exact same 5 words while the last one includes the stopword "in". That google have different search volumens for these very smilair search queries tells me that small differences matters. So how does that effect the way i shoulf write my: a)meta titles b)H1 I feel I get better sentences often by reordering the keywords etc. “Top tips on how to rent house in Hua Hin” Instead of “Top tips if you want a house for rent in Hua Hin” Do you use stop words like “in” hua hin. (only used in 25% of the searches queries)? Also would it matter if i write a plural form of a keyword instead of a singular etc propeties and sted of property? My goal is to write easy to read and unique content but i feel i can make exact matches if required with out compromising to much.
On-Page Optimization | | nm19770 -
E-commerce site hit by the latest Panda, please help
Hello mates, Our site is an e-comerce site http://goo.gl/4QBVjR has been hit hard by the latest Panda on the last weekend as many other sites such as Retailmenot etc. We were working hard from one year til now:1. Rewrite all the pages with pour content (less than 100 words), and non-original content.2. The pages where was impossible rewrite the content were 410 gone.3. About the link profile, we were removing all the unnatural links by contacting thewebmaster and finally updating a DISAVOW file at monthly basis.All these tasks were performed and we see some improvements close to the original traffic before 2012Now from the last weekend our traffic down again, so we need to know if we can do anythingor there are something hidden from our eyes.Thank youClaudio
On-Page Optimization | | SharewarePros0 -
Wordpress sitemap url problem causing WMT errors
The following types of links are appearing in my webmaster tools crawl errors report under 'other'. I've noticed they are in my sitemaps ( I run wordpress and use a plugin called Google XML sitemaps). How do I get rid of this error? http://www.musicliveuk.com/bands/postname%/
On-Page Optimization | | SamCUK0 -
Best practice for footer in ecommerce - Shall I add Top Category links?
What would you recommend regarding links to "Top Products" and "Top Categories" in footer? Would you add them to give extra link juice to top categories? would you try to avoid category links in footer that are already in the header navigationor in the main content area to avoid linking twice from all pages? would you vary these top category links in footer according to main category
On-Page Optimization | | lcourse0 -
Sitemap error is reported when using a sitemap-index generated by Yoast
I've installed the Yoast SEO Plugin for wordpress and I've setup the sitemaps using it. I saw the tool has generated the Sitemap index file http://www.phraseexpander.com/sitemap_index.xml with different indexes for posts and pages I've submitted that to google and it's indexed. When I use Seoquake to check my website, I see that it says that the sitemap is missing (in fact http://www.phraseexpander.com/sitemap.xml) is returning 404. Shall I fix that? Shall I do a 301 redirect in my .htaccess file to http://www.phraseexpander.com/sitemap_index.xml Thanks.
On-Page Optimization | | nagar0 -
What are the best eCommerce sites from an SEO perspective?
We're working hard on improving our website right now, and would love to get the community's examples of the best eCommerce sites out there, from an SEO and a general customer-centric design perspective...
On-Page Optimization | | reddogmusic0 -
What is the best way to handle small business site architecture?
I do allot of work for small businesses with around 15-20 total pages. What is the best site architecture? For example if its a landscaping website, should there be a services category page and pages under that (domain.com/services/lawn-mowing.html) or should it be flatter (domain.com/lawn-mowing.html) They offer about 10 different services.
On-Page Optimization | | JohnWeb120 -
Best Way to check for duplicate pages
With Google's updates we know they want to clean out duplicate content. i have been seeing the same crap spit out even word for word on different sites. Anyway how do you experienced SEO people test for dups on your own site as well as other sites. The only thing i can come up with is paying copyscape 5 cts a test. There has to be other ways. Advise/
On-Page Optimization | | joemas990