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.
Submitting multiple sitemaps
-
I recently moved over from html to wordpress. I have the google sitemap plugin on the new wordpress site, but in webmaster tools, it's only showing 71 pages, and I have hundreds, but many are html.
Is it okay, to submit an html sitemap as well as the wp sitemap that's already in there?
-
I agree with it. If you want to go with multiple XML site maps so you have to wait after submission.
I have very good experience with multiple XML site maps.
I am working on eCommerce website and submitted 24 XML site maps to Google webmaster tools.
Just look in to multiple XML site maps for Lamps Lighting and More!
You can see that Google webmaster tools shows very few index URLs.
I have similar experience for my another eCommerce website where I have submitted 7K+ URLs and 300+ indexed by Google with in 15 days.
-
Can someone help me here?
I used the sitemap generator, got like 500 plus pages.
I uploaded it to the root of my server, submitted it a second time to google, and got:
Parsing error
We were unable to read your Sitemap. It may contain an entry we are unable to recognize. Please validate your Sitemap before resubmitting.
I don't know how to fix this**.**
-
Well, I created a new sitemap using the above; renamed it; uploaded it to server; submitted it to google, and google did not accept saying error.
-
I'm not saying the sitemap is html, I'm saying the pages are html. And, that already have one xml sitemap that is autogenerated by the new wordpress platform, but I have a ton of html pages the new sitemap is not picking up.
So do I just create another one and add all those pages? So then there will be 2 sitemaps.
Edit: Just ran the sitemap generator. Pretty cool. Now there are some duplicates. So do I need to go in and remove those pages that already show in the first sitemap, or is it okay to have them in both sitemaps?
-
Google does not support html sitemaps and will only crawl them as any other webpage. But you can submit more xml sitemaps both in bing and google. I personally use a program called sitemap generator.
-
oh- and add both of them to your robots.txt file or create a sitemapindex.xml file that then lists both, and then just include that index version in the robots.txt file.
-
you can create one manually, or use a sitemap generator. Just be sure to call it something other than the name of your existing WP generated sitemap.xml file - so it could be sitemaphtml.xml or sitemap2.xml
They need to be in the XML format as outlined by sitemaps.org to be recognized by Google Webmaster Tools - and also submit both to Bing Webmaster Tools.
-
Well, the current sitemap google is recognizing is the wordpress (newer one) that is a .xml.
So how can I create an additional one that will show all the html pages, so google can easily find them?
-
I'm not sure about your HTML sitemap; I don't think HTML sitemaps are a supported format for you to submit to Google (I don't see them on sitemaps.org). You just need Google to crawl this page, and all the pages it links to? There is a plain text format (see here) that is allowed for sitemaps. You could probably change your HTML sitemap pretty easily to that format.
I'm pretty sure you're allowed to submit multiple sitemaps, but I can't find anything concrete saying you can or can't. The Google Webmaster Tools UI seems to support it, so my guess is that it would be fine. Try it and see if it works? You could also create a sitemap index file that references both these sitemaps.
You can read more about sitemaps on sitemaps.org. According to the Google help doc here, they adhere to these standards.
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
-
Should posts show in multiple categories?
Hi all, For context, I'm trying to Silo my content more efficiently. I've just moved all content into their own SILO'd categories and removed them from duplicate categories. As such, posts now sit only in 1 category. My question here is: Should my posts be showing in both the parent category and its sub category or just the sub-category? I've currently got this only showing in the sub-categories it's relevant to. For example:
On-Page Optimization | | xtrapsp
Post name: Shimano Fishing Rod Review
Parent Category: Fishing Rods
Sub Category: Shimano And the post only shows inside the Shimano Category0 -
Duplicate URL's in Sitemap? Is that a problem?
I submitted a sitemap to on Search Console - but noticed that there are duplicate URLs, is that a problem for Google?
On-Page Optimization | | Luciana_BAH0 -
Alt Tags on multiple product images
Hi I work on SEO for an ecommerce site and wanted to find out how important it is to optimise all images with alt tags. We have alt tags in place, however have not optimised descriptions for the following example images: Front of cupboard Back of cupboard Side of cupboard etc Is this dangerous for SEO if these images all have the same alt tag? We have thousands of products so it would be a huge job to update these, but if it's crucial for SEO we can work through our priorities. Thank you!
On-Page Optimization | | BeckyKey0 -
Should I include unnecessary pages in the sitemap.xml
I have a lot of pages that I don't want Google to index, so for most of them, I used cannonical, were they were duplicates, noindex were I wanted to remove the pages, but the question is: Should I include these pages in the sitemap.xml, or just the important pages? Also should I include them in order to get the changes indexed fastet by Google?
On-Page Optimization | | Silviu0 -
Multiple domains for the same business
My client purchased over 500 URLs for targeting various customers and ranking for different keywords. It is for the same business though. What is the best strategy to deal with this kind of approach in your opinion. They use different meta data for each of the URLs starting with brand name in meta title. Are there any other points to keep in mind when developing strategy for all those URLs. Is this a good approach?
On-Page Optimization | | alicaomisem1 -
How to Structure URL's for Multiple Locations
We are currently undergoing a site redesign and are trying to figure out the best way to structure the URL's and breadcrumbs for our many locations. We currently have 60 locations nationwide and our URL structure is as follows: www.mydomain.com/locations/{location} Where {location} is the specific street the location is on or the neighborhood the location is in. (i.e. www.mydomain.com/locations/waterford-lakes) The issue is, {location} is usually too specific and is not a broad enough keyword. The location "Waterford-Lakes" is in Orlando and "Orlando" is the important keyword, not " Waterford Lakes". To address this, we want to introduce state and city pages. Each state and city page would link to each location within that state or city (i.e. an Orlando page with links to "Waterford Lakes", "Lake Nona", "South Orlando", etc.). The question is how to structure this. Option 1 Use the our existing URL and breadcrumb structure (www.mydomain.com/locations/{location}) and add state and city pages outside the URL path: www.mydomain.com/{area} www.mydomain.com/{state} Option 2 Build the city and state pages into the URL and breadcrumb path: www.mydomain.com/locations/{state}/{area}/{location} (i.e www.mydomain.com/locations/fl/orlando/waterford-lakes) Any insight is much appreciated. Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | uBreakiFix0 -
Our sitemap is not indexed well
Hey there, Hope you guys can help. We get the following error: Nested indexing. Another Sitemap index refers to the index of sitemaps. The thing is that we cant find the error they are talking about. Thanks!!!!
On-Page Optimization | | Comunicare0 -
What is the best way to format an xml sitemap?
I am wondering if the urls should be in alphabetical order or if they should be set out in a way that reflects the sites hierarchy? Thanks.
On-Page Optimization | | Webat0