Google indexing less url's then containded in my sitemap.xml
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My sitemap.xml contains 3821 urls but Google (webmaster tools) indexes only 1544 urls. What may be the cause? There is no technical problem. Why does Google index less URLs then contained in my sitemap.xml?
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Thank you for helping
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Unless you have a SEO actively reviewing your site, it is quite normal for Google to index less pages then are offered in your sitemap.
How exactly was your sitemap created? Did you go by hand through your site's 3281 pages and add them to a sitemap? Or more likely, did you use a tool to create the sitemap? If you used a tool, how much knowledge do you have regarding how this tool works or its settings?
Just a few examples of URLs which may be included in your sitemap that Google would likely not index:
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Your home page and other pages may have multiple URLs which lead to the same page. For example: www.mysite.com and www.mysite.com/index.html may be two URLs for the same page. Google will likely only index one of them.
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You may have links to various URLs which contain parameters which Google will reduce to a single URL. For example: www.mysite.com/product_id=308&sort=asc&color=black, and another URL www.mysite.com/product_id=308&sort=desc&color=black. Both URLs lead to the same content sorted differently.
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You may have duplicate content on your site. For example, you can sell chairs and list the same chair under multiple paths such as /furniture/wood/chair123 and /furniture/dining-room/chair123. Google will recognize these two pages are the same content presented under multiple URLs.
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You may have submitted pages to your sitemap which are blocked via robots.txt or the "noindex" tag or are canonicalized to another page.
In order to better understand the root issue you need to examine a list of all URLs in your sitemap and compare that to a list of all indexed URLs. Determine which URLs Google has not indexed and research the reason for each one independently.
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Are they index worthy?
Having them on your sitemap does not mean google wants them in its index
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He just said it. Is this a new domain? Im in the same boat as you for some of my domains.
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Yes, I understand this. But
In this situation Google first indexes all the URL's within my sitemap.xml uploaded in Google Webmaster tools. Now Google indexes less URL's, only 50%. What can be the cause if there are no technical problems? -
Hi!
Google will only spend 'so much time' on any new domain. The more traffic and links and page authority you get, the more time Google will dedicate to crawling your website. You should also make sure that the site is not slow, as this will reduce the crawling speed even more! See Google page speed for tips on speeding up the load time of your site
Good Luck,
Sven Witteveen
Expand Online
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