Sitemap Size effect SEO
-
So I've noticed that the sitemap I use has a capacity of 4500 URLs, but my website is much larger. Is it worth paying for a commercial sitemap that encompasses my entire site?
I also notice that of the 4500 URLs which have been submitted, only 104 are indexed. Is this normal, if not, why is the index rate so low?
-
As Thomas said, 50k is the max but you can also have an index file with multiple sitemaps within it so you can have lots more if needed. A couple of things I would add.
- Manual crawling is fine but remember, that also means that pages that can't be crawled will be excluded from the sitemap which defeats the purpose of the sitemap
- As for why the indexation levels are so low, the first thing I would check is if everything in the sitemap is a 200 response. Make sure there aren't any redirects or 404s otherwise Google may decide not to trust the sitemap.
I hope this helps
-
Sitemaps can go up to 50,000 urls, so 4500 isn't an issue for Google to handle.
https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/183668?hl=en
Just to add on to Bernadette's post, this section "If your website's CMS can't do that, then I would recommend crawling the website yourself and updating the sitemap file. However, keep in mind that if you do it manually then you'll need to update it whenever you add or remove a page on the website." You can use something like Screaming Frog for this if you were wondering what software to use. It's a very common tool for an SEO to use, so hopefully you'll have it to save purchasing a license to something else.
-
Spacecollective, your website's sitemap file(s) don't have any direct impact on search engine rankings. If you have a large website with over 4500 URLs, then most likely you're using content management system (CMS) that "should" be able to create a sitemap file.
If your website's CMS can't do that, then I would recommend crawling the website yourself and updating the sitemap file. However, keep in mind that if you do it manually then you'll need to update it whenever you add or remove a page on the website.
Typically, if your navigational structure is set up in a way that all pages on the website can be crawled via links on the site, you generally shouldn't have anything to worry about.
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
-
SSl and SEO
Does the type of SSL used on a site have any significance to trust and seo ranking?
Technical SEO | | unikey0 -
What is the value of having an HTML sitemap on site?
For years now whenever we recreate a site we always set up both an xml sitemap and an html sitemap page. Stupid question maybe - but what is the value to having an html sitemap on site?
Technical SEO | | Pete40 -
Creating sitemaps
Hi, Anyone know a method/tool which will allow me to create a sitemap for just products? Thanks, A
Technical SEO | | Asaad0 -
SEO URLs?
What are the best practices for generating SEO-friendly headlines? dashes between words? underscores between words? etc. Looking for a programatically generated solution that's using editor-written headlines to produce an SEO-friendly URL Thanks.
Technical SEO | | ShaneHolladay0 -
Parallax Scrolling & SEO
Does anyone know the impact of Parallax scrolling from a SEO prospective?
Technical SEO | | AlgoFreaks0 -
Hosting sitemap on another server
I was looking into XML sitemap generators and one that seems to be recommended quite a bit on the forums is the xml-sitemaps.com They have a few versions though. I'll need more than 500 pages indexed, so it is just a case of whether I go for their paid for version and install on our server or go for their pro-sitemaps.com offering. For the pro-sitemaps.com they say: "We host your sitemap files on our server and ping search engines automatically" My question is will this be less effective than my installing it on our server from an SEO perspective because it is no longer on our root domain?
Technical SEO | | design_man0 -
Sitemap for 170 K webpages
I have 170 K pages on my website which I want to be indexed. I have created a multiple HTML sitemaps (e.g. sitemap1.html, sitemap2.html,...etc) with each sitemap page having 3000 links. Is this right approach or should i switch to xml based sitemaps and that too multiple one. Please suggest.
Technical SEO | | ArtiKalra0 -
Passing SEO value from a subdomain
Hi Everybody, I have built a website (http://rugby.europcar.ie) which has gone viral and getting huge amounts of traffic world wide. The problem is, all the Facebook shares, tweets and other social traffic is all referencing the subdomain, and now www.europcar.ie where I want to build rankings. What are my best options for referring this ranking power to my main domain? Thanks in advance Ronan
Technical SEO | | notnem0