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.
Should I redirect my xml sitemap?
-
Hi Mozzers,
We have recently rebranded with a new company name, and of course this necessitated us to relaunch our entire website onto a new domain.
I watched the Moz video on how they changed domain, copying what they did pretty much to the letter. (Thank you, Moz for sharing this with the community!)
It has gone incredibly smoothly. I told all my bosses that we may see a 40% reduction in traffic / conversions in the short term. In the event (and its still very early days) we have in fact seen a 15% increase in traffic and our new website is converting better than before so an all-round success!
I was just wondering if you thought I should redirect my XML sitemap as well? So far I haven't, but despite us doing the change of address thing in webmaster tools, I can see Google processed the old sitemap xml after we did the change of address etc.
What do you think? I know we've been very lucky with the outcome of this rebrand but I don't want to rest on my laurels or get tripped up later down the line.
Thanks everyone!
Amelia
-
That's great new Amelia - so glad I was able to help
-Andy
-
Hi Andy,
I just wanted to say, I followed your advice and now every single page I've submitted via webmaster tools in the xml sitemap (for Commercial Trust) has been indexed! Thank you for helping with this, you are a super-star!
Amelia
-
I will thanks Amelia, and you're welcome
-Andy
-
Thank you, much appreciated! Have a fab day
-
Hi Amelia,
No, no need to do this. As long as you have a new sitemap in place, then just have Google index this one. If they are still indexing the old one, highlight and delete it and then point them to the new one.
-Andy
-
Andy,
There is a new xml sitemap on the new domain: www.commercialtrust.co.uk/sitemap.xml, this is a directory xml sitemap.
The old xml sitemap can be accessed here: www.turnkeylandlords.co.uk/sitemap.xml.
I was wondering if I should redirect the TurnKey Landlords xml to the Commercial Trust xml?
Thanks,
Amelia
-
Hi Amelia,
Rather than redirecting this, do you have the ability to create a new sitemap based on the site as it now stands? However, if there is a new sitemap already in place, then just use Webmaster tools to upload this one.
-Andy
-
Hi Andy,
Everything in the old XML sitemap redirects to the new site.
So, I should redirect the XML as well?
Thank you,
Amelia xx
-
Hi Amelia,
I just want to understand if your old XML sitemap points to any pages that have either moved, changed URL or removed?
If so, then ideally yes. You don't really want a sitemap pointing to lots of 301's, although it is unlikely to do any major harm just yet - it is just better to start with a clean sheet that is correct.
-Andy
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
-
Priority Attribute in XML Sitemaps - Still Valid?
Is the priority value (scale of 0-1) used for each URL in an XML sitemap still a valid way of communicating to search engines which content you (the webmaster) believe is more important relative to other content on your site? I recall hearing that this was no longer used, but can't find a source. If it is no longer used, what are the easiest ways to communicate our preferences to search engines? Specifically, I'm looking to preference the most version version of a product's documentation (version 9) over the previous version (version 8). Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Allie_Williams0 -
301 redirect subdirectory to new domain
I'm planning on using 301 redirects to spin out a subdirectory of my current website to be its own separate domain. For instance, I currently have a website www.website.com and my writers write tech news at www.website.com/news. Now I want to 301 redirect www.website.com/news to www.technews.com. Will this have any negative impact on SEO? What are some steps that I can take to minimize these impacts?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Chris_Bishop1 -
When should you redirect a domain completely?
We moved a website over to a new domain name. We used 301 redirects to redirect all the pages individually (around 150 redirects). So my question is, when should we just kill the old site completely and just redirect (forward/point) the old domain over to the new one?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | co.mc0 -
Should sitemap include https pages?
Hi guys, Trying to figure out some onsite issues I've been having. Would appreciate any feedback on the following 2 questions: My homepage (http://mysite.com) is a 301 redirect to https://mysite.com, which is under SSL. Only 2 pages of my site are https, the rest are http. Should the directory of my sitemap be https://mysite.com/sitemap.xml or should it be kept with http (even though the redirected homepage is to https)? Should my sitemap include the https pages (only 2 pages) as well as the http? Thanks, G
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | G.Anderson0 -
How important are sitemap errors?
If there aren't any crawling / indexing issues with your site, how important do thing sitemap errors are? Do you work to always fix all errors? I know here: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/bings-duane-forrester-on-webmaster-tools-metrics-and-sitemap-quality-thresholds Duane Forrester mentions that sites with many 302's 301's will be punished--does any one know Googe's take on this?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | nicole.healthline0 -
GeoIP - Redirect all but target country
My client would like to redirect all non UK traffic from their UK site to their main group site. I am intending to use a .htaccess redirect, like this: RewriteCond %{ENV:GEOIP_COUNTRY_CODE} !^GB$
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | cottamg
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.group.com$1 [R,L] I have tested the redirect at it works fine. My question is if I put this in place would it have any negative SEO impact on the UK site?0 -
Trailing Slash: Lost in Redirection?
Question here, but first the lead in. As you all know, 301 redirects don't pass on 100% of link juice. I've set up my site using htaccess to redirect all non-ww to www and redirect all URLs to have a trailing slash. FYI, the preferred domain is selected in WMT and canonical URLs appear in the head section of all pages. So now what happens when sites that link to mine don't include either the www or the trailing slash, which is actually quite common? Of course, asking the site own to correct the link is ideal, but that's not always possible. So if thousands of links on external sites are linking to http://www.site.com instead of http://www.site.com/, won't lots of link juice get lost in redirection? I can't think of anything more I can do to the URLs to reduce duplicate content and juice dilution. Thoughts? Kevin
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | kwoolf0 -
Iframe redirect bad for SEO?
Hi, I have a website (http://www.blowingminds.de) wich I put a spreadshirt shop into via iframe. The thing is I am not sure on how the iframe effects my SEO? Can I just optimise the main domain for search? Well I want the spreadshirt shop to be found under the domain name (www.blowingminds.de) but the only real way to do it is by implementing an iframe because each spreadshirt shop has its own subdomain eg.: blowingminds.spreadshirt.de but the only real way to do it is via iframe, as they do not offer a complete domain redirect. (Or have I overseen some other way?) I hope you guys can help me on this one 🙂 Thanks in advance. Malte
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | wellbo1