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
-
Best way for navigation, niche E-commerce
Hi community friends. Ive have started to work on our 2.0 e-commerce store mostly when it comes to design and the ux. Its a woocommerce setup and in total we have 34 products! We have e niche site where we sell products as a system towards the building industry. Each product served its purpose within a construction detail and needs some explanation for a first time user/customer. So, first thing we did now was to ad the short description to our loop to bring some more info to the user and guide them in the right direction quick. Now the products are divided in to four categories. We actually gain a lot of traffic from those category landing pages and i am not so eager to change the way the products are categorised. The old menu where built up by a sidebar with links to the different categories and to tags pages. Where the category where for example "Adhesive" and the Tag "Seal a window from the outside". The category gives the broader direction, and the tag gives the final usage/solution/purpose with the product. In the 2.0 we would like to remove the sidebar in the product pages in favor for a full widht product page with more focus on the product and the specs. This leads us to put our navigation up in the main menu part for the desktop version. Now to the questions. 1. Do you think that we are doing it the right way, to niche and set the final usage/path to our products with tags, or should it be done in another way? 2. For the UX, do you think that removing the sidebar navigation on the product pages will lead to a worse user/shopping experience? Attached you can see some pics from our dev server where the new menu are being built up, and also the new product page layout. Please give me some feedback! 🙂 // J open?id=0BzS3SfsD0lmcSFR4a21rRlVBcjA open?id=0BzS3SfsD0lmcM0djUi1pcXdrOWM
On-Page Optimization | | knubbz0 -
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 -
Latest news in site-wide footer?
I've asked my web team to add a section to our home page to showcase our latest news and content (articles, blog entries (same domain), white papers, case studies, etc.) I think it will be a good user experience and also provide an opportunity to keep a fairly stagnant home page updated with fresh content. My web team wants to add the section to our footer, which is site-wide. I'm sure this isn't a bad user experience, but will it cause problems or eliminate any SEO value (if any) for this regularly updating content?
On-Page Optimization | | mbrusyo0 -
What is the Best Way to Translate a Website?
What is the best way? Using a different domain Using a subdomain of the main site Using a folder of the main site What's your take?
On-Page Optimization | | sbrault740 -
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 -
Best way to do a 301 redirect when the incorrect page has rank and FB likes
Due to a site structural problem with our CMS we have alot of duplicate content pages (1 page, with multiple urls). We are in the process of setting up 301 redirects to correct the problem. Meanwhile; one of the pages with the "incorrect" URL happens to be the page google favors and also has about 100 FB "likes". The question is: Are we better off keeping the "incorrect" URL for that particular page and redirect the other url to it? Both have a page rank of 3. Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | foodsleuth0 -
Sitemap generator and /index.htm
I use DMX Zone sitemap generator in Dreamweaver. When generating the sitemap, it includes both http://www.domain.com and http://www.domain.com/index.htm. Should the /index.htm be deleted from the sitemap, or will the 301 redirect take care of that? Best,
On-Page Optimization | | ChristopherGlaeser
Christopher0 -
Best way to link to an affiliate site.
I have a site that promotes a single affiliate product. Would it be better to have a "buy" button in the content that goes straight to the external affiliates website or should I send it all to an internal page that redirects thus only having 1 external link to the product site.
On-Page Optimization | | jafabel0
