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.
Using Sitemap Generator - Good/Bad?
-
Hi all
I recently purchased the full licence of XML Sitemap Generator (http://www.xml-sitemaps.com/standalone-google-sitemap-generator.html) but have yet used it.
The idea behind this is that I can deploy the package on each large e-commerce website I build and the sitemap will be generated as often as I set it be and the search engines will also be pinged automatically to inform them of the update. No more manual XML sitemap creation for me!
Now it sounds great but I do not know enough about pinging search engines with XML sitemap updates on a regular basis and if this is a good or bad thing?
Can it have any detrimental effect when the sitemap is changing (potentially) every day with new URLs for products being added to the site?
Any thoughts or optinions would be greatly appreciated.
Kris
-
It would certainly not have any impact on the existing rankings and crawl rate. infact the crawl rate would improve
-
Hi Khem
Yes I fully understood your response, thank you.
We always do sumbit a sitemap file for every site we build however we never really update the sitemap from there on, we tend to leave the search engines to crawl the site in order to find new pages or detect pages that have been removed. I assume this is a normal practice for many other developers out there?
We always do a 301 redirect for pages which have been un-published such as old products and categories.
My main concern was actually creating a new sitemap file every day and if this would have any effect on the existing rankings, or crawl rate of the site. I guess not!
Kris
-
Well to answer you question. Yes, you should always use xml sitemap also submit it with search engines. It helps search engines to access all the pages of your websites. If fact you can even tell search engines about your most important and less important pages.
It also enables you to tell Search Engines about the content update frequency so that search engine could crawl those again which you update daily/ weekly.
Furthermore, there is no problem if you update the XML file daily as long as you're not removing pages. However, if you need to remove pages, keep them in sitemap for at least one week and redirect old pages to new ones.
Hope I was able to understand your question and answered properly
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
-
Good to use disallow or noindex for these?
Hello everyone, I am reaching out to seek your expert advice on a few technical SEO aspects related to my website. I highly value your expertise in this field and would greatly appreciate your insights.
Technical SEO | | williamhuynh
Below are the specific areas I would like to discuss: a. Double and Triple filter pages: I have identified certain URLs on my website that have a canonical tag pointing to the main /quick-ship page. These URLs are as follows: https://www.interiorsecrets.com.au/collections/lounge-chairs/quick-ship+black
https://www.interiorsecrets.com.au/collections/lounge-chairs/quick-ship+black+fabric Considering the need to optimize my crawl budget, I would like to seek your advice on whether it would be advisable to disallow or noindex these pages. My understanding is that by disallowing or noindexing these URLs, search engines can avoid wasting resources on crawling and indexing duplicate or filtered content. I would greatly appreciate your guidance on this matter. b. Page URLs with parameters: I have noticed that some of my page URLs include parameters such as ?variant and ?limit. Although these URLs already have canonical tags in place, I would like to understand whether it is still recommended to disallow or noindex them to further conserve crawl budget. My understanding is that by doing so, search engines can prevent the unnecessary expenditure of resources on indexing redundant variations of the same content. I would be grateful for your expert opinion on this matter. Additionally, I would be delighted if you could provide any suggestions regarding internal linking strategies tailored to my website's structure and content. Any insights or recommendations you can offer would be highly valuable to me. Thank you in advance for your time and expertise in addressing these concerns. I genuinely appreciate your assistance. If you require any further information or clarification, please let me know. I look forward to hearing from you. Cheers!0 -
What do you do with product pages that are no longer used ? Delete/redirect to category/404 etc
We have a store with thousands of active items and thousands of sold items. Each product is unique so only one of each. All products are pinned and pushed online ... and then they sell and we have a product page for a sold item. All products are keyword researched and often can rank well for longtail keywords Would you :- 1. delete the page and let it 404 (we will get thousands) 2. See if the page has a decent PA, incoming links and traffic and if so redirect to a RELEVANT category page ? ~(again there will be thousands) 3. Re use the page for another product - for example a sold ruby ring gets replaces with ta new ruby ring and we use that same page /url for the new item. Gemma
Technical SEO | | acsilver0 -
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 -
2 sitemaps on my robots.txt?
Hi, I thought that I just could link one sitemap from my site's robots.txt but... I may be wrong. So, I need to confirm if this kind of implementation is right or wrong: robots.txt for Magento Community and Enterprise ...
Technical SEO | | Webicultors
Sitemap: http://www.mysite.es/media/sitemap/es.xml
Sitemap: http://www.mysite.pt/media/sitemap/pt.xml Thanks in advance,0 -
<sub>& <sup>tags, any SEO issues?</sup></sub>
Hi - the content on our corporate website is pretty technical, and we include chemical element codes in the text that users would search on (like S02, C02, etc.) A lot of times our engineers request that we list the codes correctly, with a <sub>on the last number. Question - does adding this code into the keyword affect SEO? The code would look like SO<sub>2</sub>.</sub> Thanks.
Technical SEO | | Jenny10 -
Do I need an XML sitemap?
I have an established website that ranks well in Google. However, I have just noticed that no xml sitemap has been registered in Google webmaster tools, so the likelihood is that it hasn't been registered with the other search engines. However, there is an html sitemap listed on the website. Seeing as the website is already ranking well, do I still need to generate and submit an XML sitemap? Could there be any detriment to current rankings in doing so?
Technical SEO | | pugh0 -
How does Google find /feed/ at the end of all pages on my site?
Hi! In Google Webmaster Tools I find *.../feed/ as a 404 page in crawl errors. The problem is that none of these pages exist and they have no inbound links (except the start page). FYI, it´s a wordpress site. Example: www.mysite.com/subpage1/feed/ www.mysite.com/subpage2/feed/ www.mysite.com/subpage3/feed/ etc Does Google search for /feed/ by default or why do I keep getting these 404´s every day?
Technical SEO | | Vivamedia0 -
/index.php in sitemap? take it out?
Hi Everyone, The following was automatically generated at xml-sitemaps.com Should I get rid of the index.php url from my sitemap? If so, how do I go about redirecting it in my htaccess ? <url><loc>http://www.mydomain.ca/</loc></url>
Technical SEO | | RogersSEO
<url><loc>http://www.mydomain.ca/index.php</loc></url> thank you in advance, Martin0