How do we handle sitemaps in robots.txt when multiple domains point to same physical location?

[nordicnetproducts]

we have www.mysite.net, www.mysite.se, www.mysite.fi and so on. all of these domains point to the same physical location on our webserver, and we replace texts given back to client depending on which domain he/she requested.

My problem is this: How do i configure sitemaps in robots.txt when robots.txt is used by multiple domains? If I for instance put the rows

_Sitemap: http://www.mysite.net/sitemapNet.xml_
_Sitemap: http://www.mysite.net/sitemapSe.xml_

in robots.txt, would that result in some cross submission error?

[nordicnetproducts]

Thanks for your help René!

[ReneReinholdt]

yup

[nordicnetproducts]

Yes, I mean GTW of course :).

A folder for each site would definitely make some things easier, but it would also mean more work every time we need to republish the site or make configurations.

Did I understand that googlelink correctly in that if we have verified ownership in GWT for all involved domains cross-site submission in robots.txt was okay? I guess google will think its okay anyway.

[ReneReinholdt]

actually google has the answer, right here: http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=75712

I always try to do what google recommends even though something might work just as well.. just to be on the safe side

[ReneReinholdt]

you can't submit a sitemap in GA so I'm guessing you mean GWT

Whether or not you put it in the robots.txt shouldn't be a problem. since in each sitemap, the urls would look something like this:

Sitemap 1:<url><loc>http:/yoursite.coim/somepage.html</loc></url>

Sitemap 2:<url><loc>http:/yoursite.dk/somepage.html</loc></url>

I see no need to filter what sitemap is shown to the crawler. If your .htaccess is set-up to redirect traffic from the TLD (top level domain eg .dk .com ex.) to the correct pages. Then the sitemaps shouldn't be a problem.

The best solution would be: to have a web in web. (a folder for each site on the server) and then have the htaccess redirect to the right folder. in this folder you have a robots.txt and a sitemap for that specific site. that way all your problems will be gone in a jiffy. It will be just like managing different 3 sites. even though it isn't.

I am no ninja with .htaccess files but I understand the technology behind it and know what you can do in them. for a how to do it guide, ask google thats what I allways do when I need to goof around in the htaccess. I hope it made sense.

[nordicnetproducts]

Thanks for your response René!

Thing is we already submit the sitemaps in google analytics, but this SEO company we hired wants us to put the sitemaps in robots.txt as well.

The .htaccess idea sounds good, as long as google or someone else dont think we are doing some cross-site submission error (as described here http://www.sitemaps.org/protocol.php#submit_robots)

[ReneReinholdt]

I see no need to use robots.txt for that. use Google and Bings webmaster tools. Here you have each domain registered  and can submit sitemaps to them for each domain.

If you want to make sure that your sitemaps are not crawled by a bot for a wrong language. I would set it up in the .htaccess to test for the entrance domain and make sure to redirect to the right file. Any bot will enter a site just like a browser so it needs to obey the server. so if the server tells it to go somewhere it will.

the robots.txt can't by it self, do what you want. The server can however. But in my opinion using bing and google webmaster tools should do the trick.