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Removing sitemaps.xml from the SERPs

Technical SEO

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KentR last edited by

Hi

What's the best way to remove sitemaps.xml from the SERP

Thanks
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TakeshiYoung @StreamlineMetrics last edited by

Make sure to set the X-Robots directive to NOINDEX|FOLLOW, or you'll completely defeat the purpose of the sitemap.
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StreamlineMetrics last edited by

I'm not sure why you would want to remove the sitemap.xml from the SERPs, but I'll answer your question anyways.

One option would be to remove the URL via Google Webmaster Tools.

Another option is to use the X-Robots-Tag directive in the HTTP header and set it to noindex. Here is some more info on how to set it up http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/07/robots-exclusion-protocol-now-with-even.html and http://sebastians-pamphlets.com/handling-googles-neat-x-robots-tag-sending-rep-header-tags-with-php/
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TakeshiYoung last edited by

Why would you want to remove it from the SERP? There's no harm in it being there, and it's unlikely to outrank your actual pages for your keywords.
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