Do Seomozers recommend sitemaps.xml or not. I'm thoroughly confused now. The more I read, the more conflicted I get
-
I realize I'm probably opening a can of worms, but here we go. Do you or do you not add a sitemap.xml to a clients site?
-
Go with a sitemap. Hint it via robots.txt and use a Gzipped SitemapIndex (not a plain sitemap). Make sure that your index files do not contain more than 50,000 URLs.
Verify that whatever you submit in the sitemap-index files is not blocked by robots.txt or onpage noindex-tags.
-
Hi Catherine
It's still considered good practice to include a sitemap.xml though not always essential.
It's debatable as to whether or not it actually brings benefit to do so (likely does in some cases such as for dynamic sites and new sites) though as Webmaster Tools still has the facility to receive sitemap.xml files through a submission, is usually good to spend a little time creating one. One more tick in the box for on-site SEO.
A good read on this topic can found at http://www.brilliantthinking.net/2012/05/22/benefits-of-a-google-xml-sitemap/
Hope that helps,
Simon
-
Yep, in most cases, as long as they are done well. There was a lady on here a week or so ago that was submitting a site map with nearly 250,000 duplicate URLs and in that instance, I would probably say drop it if you can't fix it.
But, in ordinary cases, if your sitemap is well aligned with the pages on your site and if you have duplicate URLs and canonical urls and it only features the correct canonical it can certainly increase indexation and subsequently unique URLs that are sending traffic.
We have also seem some great indexation and results from video and multi page sitemaps.
Another plus point is if you do have problems with pages you submit, you will get some feedback in webmaster tools when the pages show as 'not selected' which again can be a useful bit of diagnostic information.
So, in most cases, sitemaps get a thumbs up from me.
Marcus
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
-
URL has caps, but canonical does not. Now what?
Hi, Just started working with a site that has the occasional url with a capital, but then the url in the canonical as lower case. Neither, when entered in a browser, resolves to the other. It's a Shopify site. What do you think I should do?
Technical SEO | | 945010 -
Handling XML Sitemaps for Ad Classified Sites
Let's put on a scenario for a Job Classified site, So far the way we are handling xml sitemaps is in a consecutive number containing only ads historically: http://site.com/sitemap_ads_1.xml http://site.com/sitemap_ads_2.xml http://site.com/sitemap_ads_99.xml Those sitemaps are constantly updating as each ad is published, keeping expired ads but I'm sure there is a better way to handle them. For instance we have other source of content besides ads pages, like those related to search results (Careers, Location, Salary, level, type of contract, etc) and blog content, but we are not adding them yet So what I'm suggesting is to reduce the amount of xml sitemaps ads to just one, including just the ones that are active (not expired), add another xml sitemap based on search results, another one on blog content, another one on images and finally one for static content such as home, faq, contact, etc. Do you guys think this is the right way to go?
Technical SEO | | JoaoCJ0 -
Sitemaps: Good Image And Video Sitemap Generators
Hello, We are trying to update our sitemap. We have currently updated our XML and HTML sitemaps but would like to have an image and video sitemap also. Can anyone recommend a good image and video sitemap generator? Kind regards, | Deeana Radley Web Designer & SEO Assistant Phone: 01702 460047 Email: dee@solopress.com Google+: +DeeanaRadley Twitter: @DeeanaRadley |
Technical SEO | | SolopressPrint0 -
I'm receiving this message...
It's saying Roger can't communicate with my site. I've contacted ipage which is the host and they say it's on your end. Please let me know if you need any more info. from me... Thanks, Tom 404-447-2868
Technical SEO | | NextlevelMD0 -
I noticed all my SEOed sites are getting attacked constantly by viruses. I do wordpress sites. Does anyone have a good recommendation to protect my clients sites? thanks
We have tried all different kinds of security plugins but none seem to work long term.
Technical SEO | | Carla_Dawson0 -
I'm redesigning a website which will have a new URL format. What's the best way to redirect all the old URLs to the new ones? Is there an automated, fast way to do this?
For example, the new URL will be: https://oregonoptimalhealth.com/about_us.html while the old one's were like this: http://www.oregonoptimalhealth.com/home/ooh/smartlist_1/services.html I have redirect almost 100 old pages to the correct new page. What's the best and easiest way to do this?
Technical SEO | | PolarisMarketing0 -
Best XML Sitemap Generator for Mac?
Hi all, Recently moved from PC to Mac when starting a new job. One of the things I'm missing from my PC is G Site Crawler, and I haven't yet found a decent equivalent for the Mac. Can anybody recommend something as good as G Site Crawler for the Mac? I.e. I need the flexibility to exclude by URL parameter etc etc. Cheers everyone, Mark
Technical SEO | | markadoi840 -
Adding Google + to SEOmoz
I wanted to add my google + signature to every post I make on SEOmoz and I think every user should do the same... Two reasons why... Google helps our existence so we should help theirs. If someone likes what I wrote or vice versa we should be able to follow each other in a simple click. In my opinion all blogs forum posts etc... should Lead to a user not a website, this will prevent spam and help people network. In other words blog spammers and forum spammers will be SOL (Which they all ready are lol).
Technical SEO | | SEODinosaur0