XML and Disallow
-
I was just curious about any potential side effects of a client Basically utilizing a catch-all solution through the use of a spider for generating their XML Sitemap and then disallowing some of the directories in the XML sitemap in the robots.txt.
i.e.
XML contains 500 URLs
50 URLs contain /dirw/
I don't want anything with /dirw/ indexed just because they are fairly useless. No content, one image.They utilize the robots.txt file to " disallow: /dirw/ "
Lets say they do this for maybe 3 separate directories making up roughly 30% of the URL's in the XML sitemap.
I am just advising they re-do the sitemaps because that shouldn't be too dificult but I am curious about the actual ramifications of this other than "it isn't a clear and concise indication to the SE and therefore should be made such" if there are any.
Thanks!
-
Hi Thomas,
I don't think that technically there is a problem with adding url's to a sitemap & then blocking part of them with robots.txt.
I wouldn't do it however - and I would give the same advice as you did: regenerate the sitemap without this content. Main reason would be that it goes against the main goals of a sitemap: helping bots to crawl your site and to provide valuable metadata (https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/156184?hl=en). Another advantage is that Google indicates the % of url's of each sitemap which is index. From that perspective, url's which are blocked for indexing have no use in a sitemap. Normally webmaster tools will generate errors, to let you know that there are issues with the sitemap.
If you take it one step further, Google could consider you a bit of a lousy webmaster, if you keep these url's in the sitemap. Not sure if this is the case, but for something which can easily be corrected, not sure if I would take this risk (even if it's a very minor one).
There are crawlers (like screamingfrog) which can generate sitemaps, while respecting the directives of the robots.txt - this would in my opinion be a better option.
rgds,
Dirk
-
For syntax I think you'll want:
User-agent: *
Disallow: /dirw/If the content of /dirw/ isn't worthwhile to the engines then it should be fine to disallow. It's important to note though that Google asks for CSS and Javascript to not be disallowed. Run the site through their Page Speed tool to see how this setup currently impacts that interaction. Cheers!
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
-
HTML or XML sitemap - benefits
Hi all, Can I use only HTML sitemap or I should use both versions?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Tormar
How much I would lose in case when I would lose only HTML sitemap, without XML sitemap? Thank you.0 -
Any excellent recommendations for a sitemap.xml plugin?
Hi, I'm trying to find a sitemap generator/plugin that I can point my client to. My client is using Magento, and is one of the largest sports store i Norway (around 20 000 products). I've heard there's one that can set the <priority>according to page views, sold units, and other relevant parameters, and that also takes care of the other elements in the sitemap.xml.</priority> Any good recommendations out there? 🙂
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Inevo0 -
Do you suggest I use the Yoast or the Google XML sitemap for my blog?
I just shut off the All-In-One seo pack plugin for wordpress, and turned on the Yoast plugin. It's great! So much helpful, seo boosting info! So, in watching a video on how to configure the plugin, it mentions that I should update the sitemap, using the Yoast sitemap I'm afraid to do this, because I'm pretty technologically behind... I see I have a Google XML Sitemaps (by Arne Brachhold) plugin turned on (and have had it for many years). Should I leave this one on? Or would you recommend going through the steps to use the Yoast plugin sitemap? If so, what are the benefits of the Yoast plugin, over the Google XML? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | DavidC.0 -
XML Sitemap & Bad Code
I've been creating sitemaps with XML Sitemap Generator, and have been downloading them to edit on my pc. The sitemaps work fine when viewing in a browser, but when I download and open in Dreamweaver, the urls don't work when I cut and paste them in the Firefox URL bar. I notice the codes are different. For example, an "&" is produced like this..."&". Extra characters are inserted, producing the error. I was wondering if this is normal, because as I said, the map works fine when viewing online.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | alrockn0 -
XML Sitemaps - Multi-lingual website
Hi Mozzers, I am working with a large website that has some of its content translated across multiple languages. I am planning on using The Media Flow to create an HREFLANG Sitemap for content on various languages. Please see the attached image for the questions below. Thanks! Section Highlighted Yellow: When there is a URL that does not have a translated version, should it not be included on the same HREFLANG sitemap? Alternately, could I just remove the languages that are not being targeted, so this would just reflect English language targeting? fqO9Dvk
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | J-Banz0 -
If i disallow unfriendly URL via robots.txt, will its friendly counterpart still be indexed?
Our not-so-lovely CMS loves to render pages regardless of the URL structure, just as long as the page name itself is correct. For example, it will render the following as the same page: example.com/123.html example.com/dumb/123.html example.com/really/dumb/duplicative/URL/123.html To help combat this, we are creating mod rewrites with friendly urls, so all of the above would simply render as example.com/123 I understand robots.txt respects the wildcard (*), so I was considering adding this to our robots.txt: Disallow: */123.html If I move forward, will this block all of the potential permutations of the directories preceding 123.html yet not block our friendly example.com/123? Oh, and yes, we do use the canonical tag religiously - we're just mucking with the robots.txt as an added safety net.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mrwestern0 -
How do I create a XML Sitemap?
It appears that the free online tools limit the number of URLs they'll include. What tools have you had success with?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | NaHoku1 -
Which is best structure for Multiple XML Sitemap?
I have read such a great blog posts on Multiple XML Sitemaps on following websites before a week. SEOmoz Distilled Google Webmaster Central Blog Search Engine Land SEO Inc I have created multiple XML sitemaps for my eCommerce website with following structure and submitted to Google webmaster tools. http://www.vistastores.com/main_sitemap.xml http://www.vistastores.com/products_sitemap.xml But, I am not satisfy with my second XML sitemap because it contain more than 7K+ product page URLs and looks like very slow crawling by Google! I want to separate my XML sitemap with following structure. With Root Level Category http://www.vistastores.com/outdoor_sitemap.xml http://www.vistastores.com/furniture_sitemap.xml http://www.vistastores.com/kitchen_dining_sitemap.xml http://www.vistastores.com/home_decor_sitemap.xml OR::: End Level Category http://www.vistastores.com/table_lamps_sitemap.xml http://www.vistastores.com/floor_lamps_sitemap.xml . . . . . . . etc.... So, Which is best structure for Multiple XML Sitemap?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | CommercePundit0