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.
.xml sitemap showing in SERP
-
Our sitemap is showing in Google's SERP. While it's only for very specific queries that don't seem to have much value (it's a healthcare website and when a doctor who isn't with us is search with the brand name so 'John Smith Brand,' it shows if there's a first or last name that matches the query), is there a way to not make the sitemap indexed so it's not showing in the SERP.
I've seen the "x-robots-tag: noindex" as a possible option, but before taking any action wanted to see if this was still true and if it would work.
-
Agreed, but had to do my due diligence to ask
Thanks for the feedback!
-
You could go that route, but I would honestly ignore it and focus on some other issues ;).
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
-
GA4 showing 2 versions of my homepage
When my website Custom Made Casino switched from universal analytics to GA, i have noticed that now in the behavior section it is showing 2 versions of my homepage which I feel may be impacting seo. It is showing the main url which we use for everything, https://custommadecasino.com/ , and it is showing https://custommadecasino.com/index.php?route-common/home. This was never the case with universal. Does anyone know if this is a problem and if so, how do i fix it so that our proper homepage is what is indexed?
Technical SEO | | CustomMadeCasino0 -
Which Sitemap to keep - Http or https (or both)
Hi, Just finished upgrading my site to the ssl version (like so many other webmasters now that it may be a ranking factor). FIxed all links, CDN links are now secure, etc and 301 Redirected all pages from http to https. Changed property in Google Analytics from http to https and added https version in Webmaster Tools. So far, so good. Now the question is should I add the https version of the sitemap in the new HTTPS site in webmasters or retain the existing http one? Ideally switching over completely to https version by adding a new sitemap would make more sense as the http version of the sitemap would anyways now be re-directed to HTTPS. But the last thing i can is to get penalized for duplicate content. Could you please suggest as I am still a rookie in this department. If I should add the https sitemap version in the new site, should i delete the old http one or no harm retaining it.
Technical SEO | | ashishb010 -
Redirecting old Sitemaps to a new XML
I've discovered a ton of 404s from Google's WMT crawler looking for mydomain.com/sitemap_archive_MONTH_YEAR. There are tons of these monthly archive xmls. I've used a plugin that for some reason created individual monthly archive xml sitemaps and now I get 404s. Creating rules for each archive seems a bad solution. My current sitemap plugin creates a single clean one mydomain.com/sitemap_index.xml. How can I create a redirect rule in the Redirection WP plugin that will redirect any URL that has the 'sitemap' and 'xml' string in it to my current xml sitemap? I've tried using a wildcard like so: mysite.com/sitemap*.*, mysite.com/sitemap ., mysite.com/sitemap(.), mysite.com/sitemap (.) but none of the wildcard uses got the general redirect to work. Is there a way to make this happen with the WP Redirection plugin? If not, is there a htaccess rule, and what would the code be for it? Im not very fluent with using general redirects in htaccess unfortunately. Thanks!
Technical SEO | | IgorMateski0 -
Should 301-ed links be removed from sitemap?
In an effort to do some housekeeping on our site we are wanting to change the URL format for a couple thousand links on our site. Those links will all been 301 redirected to corresponding links in the new URL format. For example, old URL format: /tag/flowers as well as search/flowerswill be 301-ed to, new URL format: /content/flowers**Question:**Since the old links also exist in our sitemap, should we add the new links to our sitemap in addition to the old links, or replace the old links with new ones in our sitemap? Just want to make sure we don’t lose the ranking we currently have for the old links.Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!
Technical SEO | | shawn811 -
Missing meta descriptions from Google SERPs
Hullo all, I run an e-commerce website and hence have a lot of product category/sub-category pages to handle. Despite giving each of these category pages meta descriptions, in the Google SERPs, a lot of these descriptions don't show up fully. Rather, only half the text that I'd inputed as my meta desc. shows up; the other half has generic stuff from that page given. I've attached a screen shot to give you an example of what comes up in the SERPs. Could you please tell me what exactly is the problem? Is it a coding issue? Or has Google not crawled that page? Need help asap! Thank you in advance! aE9RKXJ
Technical SEO | | suchde0 -
Is there a suggested limit to the amount of links on a sitemap?
Currently, I have an error on my moz dashboard indicating there are too many links on one of my pages. That page is the sitemap. It was my understanding all internal pages should be linked to the sitemap. Can any mozzers help clarify the best practice here? Thanks, Clayton
Technical SEO | | JorgeUmana0 -
Why has Google removed meta descriptions from SERPS?
One of my clients' sites has just been redesigned with lots of new URLs added. So the 301 redirections have been put in place and most of the new URLs have now been indexed. BUT Google is still showing all the old URLs in the SERPS and even worse it only displays the title tag. The meta description is not shown, no rich snippet, no text, nothing below the title. This is proving disastrous as visitors are not clicking on a result with no description. I have to assume its got something to do with the redirection, but why is it not showing the descriptions? I've checked the old URLs and he meta description is definitely still in the code, but Google is choosing not to show it. I've never seen this before so I'm struggling for an answer. I'd like to know why or how this is happening, and if it can be resolved. I realise that this may be resolved when Google stops showing all the old URLs but there's no telling how long that will take (can it be speeded up?)
Technical SEO | | Websensejim0 -
Should XML sitemaps include *all* pages or just the deeper ones?
Hi guys, Ok this is a bit of a sitemap 101 question but I cant find a definitive answer: When we're running out XML sitemaps for google to chew on (we're talking ecommerce and directory sites with many pages inside sub-categories here) is there any point in mentioning the homepage or even the second level pages? We know google is crawling and indexing those and we're thinking we should trim the fat and just send a map of the bottom level pages. What do you think?
Technical SEO | | timwills0