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.
Where to link to HTML Sitemap?
-
After searching this morning and finding unclear answers I decided to ask my SEOmoz friends a few questions.
Should you have an HTML sitemap?
If so, where should you link to the HTML sitemap from?
Should you use a noindex, follow tag?
Thank you
-
I always create one and link from the footer text navigation. It is beneficial for usability and search engine spidering. Also. I never add special qualifiers to links like follow etc etc unless it is in the negative (don't follow etc) and even then you can omit pages via robots.txt
-
They are also on all the service pages at the top.
-
If the site is built well, then all pages would be accessible via 3 clicks. So html sitemaps really aren't needed.
-
If something is popular, would it be at the bottom?
-
You're right. I have never clicked on a footer sitemap link either. I have a popular pages section right about the footer. Maybe that be fine work.
-
I do have XML sitemaps setup correctly. I decided to just add it on the homepage for human visitors and on the 404 pages. The noindex idea was so Google didn't index the sitemap but that's when I had it on every page. I guess it doesn't matter if it's just on the homepage.
-
I do have XML sitemaps setup correctly. I decided to just add it on the homepage for human visitors and on the 404 pages. The noindex idea was so Google didn't index the sitemap but that's when I had it on every page. I guess it doesn't matter if it's just on the homepage.
-
Hi Will,
Personally, I approach this from two perspectives: Usability and SEO.
Usability: I don't think I've ever clicked on a footer sitemap myself when looking for things on a website. If organic search does not take me to what I want, I do a bit more browsing with a last ditch effort using the keyword search box. If that doesn't work, I bounce back to my organic search results and try another site or refine my search.
Therefore, I removed the footer sitemap from our ecommerce site and created a left nav link to additional categories. The link is above the fold and I call it "Additional Categories." I am shocked at the volume of visitors who go to that page - far more than every visited our footer sitemap.
SEO: In my opinion, a sitemap moves links up to the second tier click level because they are buried too deep and don't get the juice. These pages need to be moved up perhaps because the link structure and hierarchy are not sound or maybe it is just too big of a challenge to flatten out all portions of a site.
Therefore, I flatten out and improve the link structure (or as sound as you can get). If there are categories that warrant indexing, but are not best sellers, I put them on the additional categories page. If some of the categories are 3 clicks (sometimes 4) and difficult to flatten out or fix, I put them in the additional categories page so people can see them and spiders can crawl them. Our site currently does not have the authority to force the juice to deeper penetration.
-
I feel html site maps are no longer needed if you correctly setup XML sitemaps, and also link to them from your robots.txt file.
But if you still want them for users, then I would put it in the footer, and have Google Index and Follow.
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
-
6 .htaccess Rewrites: Remove index.html, Remove .html, Force non-www, Force Trailing Slash
i've to give some information about my website Environment 1. i have static webpage in the root. 2. Wordpress installed in sub-dictionary www.domain.com/blog/ 3. I have two .htaccess , one in the root and one in the wordpress
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | NeatIT
folder. i want to www to non on all URLs Remove index.html from url Remove all .html extension / Re-direct 301 to url
without .html extension Add trailing slash to the static webpages / Re-direct 301 from non-trailing slash Force trailing slash to the Wordpress Webpages / Re-direct 301 from non-trailing slash Some examples domain.tld/index.html >> domain.tld/ domain.tld/file.html >> domain.tld/file/ domain.tld/file.html/ >> domain.tld/file/ domain.tld/wordpress/post-name >> domain.tld/wordpress/post-name/ My code in ROOT htaccess is <ifmodule mod_rewrite.c="">Options +FollowSymLinks -MultiViews RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase / #removing trailing slash
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^(.*)/$ $1 [R=301,L] #www to non
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.(([a-z0-9_]+.)?domain.com)$ [NC]
RewriteRule .? http://%1%{REQUEST_URI} [R=301,L] #html
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^([^.]+)$ $1.html [NC,L] #index redirect
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^[A-Z]{3,9}\ /index.html\ HTTP/
RewriteRule ^index.html$ http://domain.com/ [R=301,L]
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} .html
RewriteRule ^(.*).html$ /$1 [R=301,L]</ifmodule> The above code do 1. redirect www to non-www
2. Remove trailing slash at the end (if exists)
3. Remove index.html
4. Remove all .html
5. Redirect 301 to filename but doesn't add trailing slash at the end0 -
Pages with excessive number of links
Hi all, I work for a retailer and I've crawled our website with RankTracker for optimization suggestions. The main suggestion is "Pages with excessive number of links: 4178" The page with the largest amount of links has 634 links (627 internal, 7 external), the lowest 382 links (375 internal, 7 external). However, when I view the source on any one of the example pages, it becomes obvious that the site's main navigation header contains 358 links, so every new page starts with 358 links before any content. Our rivals and much larger sites like argos.co.uk appear to have just as many links in their main navigation menu. So my questions are: 1. Will these excessive links really be causing us a problem or is it just 'good practice' to have fewer links
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Bee159
2. Can I use 'no follow' to stop Google etc from counting the 358 main navigation links
3. Is have 4000+ pages of your website all dumbly pointing to other pages a help or hindrance?
4. Can we 'minify' this code so it's cached on first load and therefore loads faster? Thank you.0 -
Should sitemap include https pages?
Hi guys, Trying to figure out some onsite issues I've been having. Would appreciate any feedback on the following 2 questions: My homepage (http://mysite.com) is a 301 redirect to https://mysite.com, which is under SSL. Only 2 pages of my site are https, the rest are http. Should the directory of my sitemap be https://mysite.com/sitemap.xml or should it be kept with http (even though the redirected homepage is to https)? Should my sitemap include the https pages (only 2 pages) as well as the http? Thanks, G
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | G.Anderson0 -
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 -
Dummy links in posts
Hi, Dummy links in posts. We use 100's of sample/example lnks as below http://<domain name></domain name> http://localhost http://192.168.1.1 http:/some site name as example which is not available/sample.html many more is there any tag we can use to show its a sample and not a link and while we scan pages to find broken links they are skipped and not reported as 404 etc? Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mtthompsons0 -
Do 404 Pages from Broken Links Still Pass Link Equity?
Hi everyone, I've searched the Q&A section, and also Google, for about the past hour and couldn't find a clear answer on this. When inbound links point to a page that no longer exists, thus producing a 404 Error Page, is link equity/domain authority lost? We are migrating a large eCommerce website and have hundreds of pages with little to no traffic that have legacy 301 redirects pointing to their URLs. I'm trying to decide how necessary it is to keep these redirects. I'm not concerned about the page authority of the pages with little traffic...I'm concerned about overall domain authority of the site since that certainly plays a role in how the site ranks overall in Google (especially pages with no links pointing to them...perfect example is Amazon...thousands of pages with no external links that rank #1 in Google for their product name). Anyone have a clear answer? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | M_D_Golden_Peak0 -
Increasing Internal Links But Avoiding a Link Farm
I'm looking to create a page about Widgets and all of the more specific names for Widgets we sell: ABC Brand Widgets, XYZ Brand Widgets, Big Widgets, Small Widgets, Green Widgets, Blue Widgets, etc. I'd like my Widget page to give a brief explanation about each kind of Widget with a link deeper into my site that gives more detail and allows you to purchase. The problem is I have a lot of Widgets and this could get messy: ABC Green Widgets, Small XYZ Widgets, many combinations. I can see my Widget page teetering on being a link farm if I start throwing in all of these combos. So where should I stop? How much do I do? I've read more than 100 links on a page being considered a link farm, is that a hardline number or a general guideline?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | rball10 -
Online Sitemap Generator
I have a site that has around 5,000 pages now. Are there any recommened online free/paid tools to generate a sitemap for me?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | rhysmaster0