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.
Exclude Child URLs from XML Sitemap Generator (Wordpress)
-
Hi all,
I was recommended the XML Sitemap Generator for Wordpress by the very helpful Keith Bloemendaal and John Pring - however I can't seem to exclude child URLs.
There is a section Exclude items and a subsection Exclude posts. I have tried inputting the URLs for the pages I don't want in the sitemap, however that didn't work. So I read that you have to include a list of "IDs" - not sure where on earth to find that info, tried the page name and the post= number from the URL, however neither worked.
I hope somebody can point me in the right direction - and apologies, I am a Wordpress novice, and I got no answers from the Wordpress forums so turned right back to SEOmoz!
Cheers.
-
AH! You did it Keith - I thought clicking 'update' at the bottom would do it, but there's a little link hidden in some text at the top saying "rebuild the sitemap manually".
Finally it's done, thanks so much for your help!
Mark
-
Did you try to generate a new sitemap after clicking update options and then submitting it to webmaster tools?
Generally it will only update when you add/delete pages on it's own.
-
I'm just trying to exclude these child URLs from the sitemap - in future I may block them entirely, but I certainly don't want to submit a sitemap with these URLs and then contradict that in robots.txt.
I have used the Post ID numbers to exclude the pages from the sitemap, however they remain in place.
Thanks once again for your assistance and quick responses!
-
It may take some time for it to propagate to Google if that is what you are asking. Are you trying to block the pages/posts completely from search engines?
-
Hi Keith,
Thanks once again for a quick response. I have actually tried that method, however when I check the live sitemap I can still see the pages in my sitemap. Very frustrating! Is it that the sitemap doesn't update live straight away? And just to confirm, I am clicking "Update Options" at the bottom - quite often it'll be something stupid like that!
Thanks,
Mark
-
Great question, and WP really should make this easier!
http://businessaccent.com/2009/06/08/what-is-my-wordpress-post-id-number-and-how-can-i-find-it/ This article explains one way to see it, also if you open up the post/page in the admin panel to edit it you can just look in your browser to see the url which will have the post ID in it... IE: www.yoursite.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=615&action=edit (615 is the post ID)
Hope that helped
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
-
Indexing product attributes in sitemap
Hey Mozzers! I'm battling a few questions about the sitemap for my ecommerce store. Could you help me out? Is it necessary to include your product attributes in the sitemap? I'm not sure why it would matter to have a sitemap that lists everything in the color cherry. Also, if the attributes were included in the sitemap, would that count as duplicate content for the same products to show up in multiple attributes? Is there any benefit to submitting the sitemaps individually? For example, submitting /product-sitemap.xml, /product_brand-sitemap.xml versus just /sitemap.xml? Any other best practices for managing my ecommerce sitemap, or great resources, would be very helpful. Thank you! a1vUz
Technical SEO | | localwork0 -
Category URL Pagination where URLs don't change between pages
Hello, I am working on an e-commerce site where there are categories with multiple pages. In order to avoid pagination issues I was thinking of using rel=next and rel=prev and cannonical tags. I noticed a site where the URL doesn't change between pages, so whether you're on page 1,2, or 3 of the same category, the URL doesn't change. Would this be a cleaner way of dealing with pagination?
Technical SEO | | whiteonlySEO0 -
When creating parent and child pages should key words be repeated in url and page title?
We are in the direct mail advertising business: PrintLabelAndMail.com Example: Parent:
Technical SEO | | JimDirectMailCoach
Postcard Direct Mail Children:
Postcard Mailings
Postcard Design
Postcard Samples
Postcard Pricing
Postcard Advantages should "postcard" be repeated in the URL and Page Title? and in this example should each of the 5 children link back directly to the parent or would it be better to "daisy chain" them using each as parent for the next?0 -
Spaces (actual spaces) in URL
Hi all, Is there a huge loss of SEO performance if a URL shows spaces with an actual space (i.e. %20) in the URL rather than a "-" (or indeed a "_")? I know the preferred option is to have a "-", but I am just wondering if it is worth our effort to manually change the "%20" to a "-" in all the instances? Thanks 🙂 Diana
Technical SEO | | Diana.varbanescu0 -
Generating a signature and expires in java
Hello, I am developing a tool for my company to get stats from SeoMoz using your API. During development, I have been using the example signature and expires values which are auto-generated for me. Now that testing is complete, my code will need to generate these values. I have been googling looking for a resource demonstrating how to do this using Java, but I have not found a good example. I was hoping that someone at SeoMoz would have a resource or an example that they could share. The email associated with this account belongs to a non-developer, so if a response is provided via email in addition to the forum, sending it to my email would be much appreciated. Thank you, Anthony aruffino@ignitemedia.com
Technical SEO | | TRich500 -
Special characters in URL
Hi There, We're in the process of changing our URL structure to be more SEO friendly. Right now I'm struggling to find a good way to handle slashes that are part of a targeted keyword. For example, if I have a product page and my product title is "1/2 ct Diamond Earrings in 14K Gold" which of the following URLs is the right way to go if I'm targeting the product title as the search keyword? example.com/jewelry/1-2-ct-diamond-earrings-in-14k-gold example.com/jewelry/12-ct-diamond-earrings-in-14k-gold example.com/jewelry/1_2-ct-diamond-earrings-in-14k-gold example.com/jewelry/1%2F2-ct-diamond-earrings-in-14k-gold Thanks!
Technical SEO | | Richline_Digital0 -
Include pagination in sitemap.xml?
Curious on peoples thoughts around this. Since restructuring our site we have seen a massive uplift in pages indexed and organic traffic with our pagination. But we haven't yet included a sitemap.xml. It's an ancient site that never had one. Given that Google seems to be loving us right now, do we even need a sitemap.xml - aside from the analytical benefis in WM Tools? Would you include pagination URL's (don't worry, we have no duplicate content) in the sitemap.xml? Cheers.
Technical SEO | | sichristie0