XML Sitemap instruction in robots.txt = Worth doing?
-
Hi fellow SEO's,
Just a quick one, I was reading a few guides on Bing Webmaster tools and found that you can use the robots.txt file to point crawlers/bots to your XML sitemap (they don't look for it by default).
I was just wondering if it would be worth creating a robots.txt file purely for the purpose of pointing bots to the XML sitemap?
I've submitted it manually to Google and Bing webmaster tools but I was thinking more for the other bots (I.e. Mozbot, the SEOmoz bot?).
Any thoughts would be appreciated!
Regards,
Ash
-
Thanks for the answer and link John!
Regards,
Ash
-
I think it's worth it as it should only take a few minutes to set up, and it's good to have a robots.txt, even if it's allowing everything. Put a text file named "robots.txt" in your root directory with:
<code>User-agent: * Disallow: Sitemap: http://www.yourdomain.com/none-standard-location/sitemap.xml</code>
Read more about robots.txt here: http://www.seomoz.org/learn-seo/robotstxt.
-
It is not going to make any difference. Time is better spend in fixing crawling & indexing issues of the website.
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 I include URLs that are 301'd or only include 200 status URLs in my sitemap.xml?
I'm not sure if I should be including old URLs (content) that are being redirected (301) to new URLs (content) in my sitemap.xml. Does anyone know if it is best to include or leave out 301ed URLs in a xml sitemap?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Jonathan.Smith0 -
Robots.txt for Facet Results
Hi Does anyone know how to properly add facets URL's to Robots txt? E.g. of our facets URL - http://www.key.co.uk/en/key/platform-trolleys-trucks#facet:-10028265807368&productBeginIndex:0&orderBy:5&pageView:list& Everything after the # will need to be blocked on all pages with a facet. Thank you
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BeckyKey0 -
Sitemap Priority and Recency
Perhaps more of a discussion here than a definite answer, but we are looking at making periodic changes to the priority and recency of our sitemap pages, but would have to repopulate that information each time our plugin updates for our WordPress site. Is this something that is even worth doing or are these updates not impactful enough to merit adding it to our process? Thanks all!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ReunionMarketing0 -
Why do some sites have several types of sitemap?
Hello Mozzers, I often seem to work on websites with several types of sitemaps - e.g. an html sitemap - an xml sitemap - almost always with identical structure and content. Does anybody know the thinking behind this? Currently looking at site with php and xml sitemap sitting alongside one another. I'm guessing one is for site users to read (and also to aid indexing) and the other for search engines, to further aid indexing. Does Google have any preferences? Is there anything you should be wary of re: Google, if there are multiple sitemaps?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | McTaggart0 -
I have two sitemaps which partly duplicate - one is blocked by robots.txt but can't figure out why!
Hi, I've just found two sitemaps - one of them is .php and represents part of the site structure on the website. The second is a .txt file which lists every page on the website. The .txt file is blocked via robots exclusion protocol (which doesn't appear to be very logical as it's the only full sitemap). Any ideas why a developer might have done that?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | McTaggart0 -
Should canonical links be included or excluded in a sitemap?
Our company is in the process of updating our sitemap. Should we include or exclude canonical links.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | WebRiverGroup0 -
Robots.txt 404 problem
I've just set up a wordpress site with a hosting company who only allow you to install your wordpress site in http://www.myurl.com/folder as opposed to the root folder. I now have the problem that the robots.txt file only works in http://www.myurl./com/folder/robots.txt Of course google is looking for it at http://www.myurl.com/robots.txt and returning a 404 error. How can I get around this? Is there a way to tell google in webmaster tools to use a different path to locate it? I'm stumped?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SamCUK0 -
Can a XML sitemap index point to other sitemaps indexes?
We have a massive site that is having some issue being fully crawled due to some of our site architecture and linking. Is it possible to have a XML sitemap index point to other sitemap indexes rather than standalone XML sitemaps? Has anyone done this successfully? Based upon the description here: http://sitemaps.org/protocol.php#index it seems like it should be possible. Thanks in advance for your help!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | CareerBliss0