Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

Your browser does not seem to support JavaScript. As a result, your viewing experience will be diminished, and you have been placed in read-only mode.

Please download a browser that supports JavaScript, or enable it if it's disabled (i.e. NoScript).

What is the best way to format an xml sitemap?

On-Page Optimization

1421

Webat last edited by

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.
1 Reply Last reply
Reply Quote 0
RyanKent last edited by

The best resource for XML sitemap information is http://www.sitemaps.org/protocol.php

The order makes no difference at all. If you have proper site navigation, the sitemap really does not perform any function. A search engine will scan the sitemap and determine if it has any URLs which have not been crawled, then decide upon what action to take. The URLs already in their database are disregarded unless they have new information (i.e. the last mod date is newer then when the page was last crawled).
1 Reply Last reply
Reply Quote 0

Got a burning SEO question?

Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.

Start my free trial

Browse Questions

View

From

Sorted by

With category

Explore more categories

Related Questions

Exact keyword match for meta title and h1 what is best practice?

How exact should my meta titles and H1 one be compare to the keyword you wish to rank on. Eksample. When I do a research with google AdWords the keyword tool shows me: 260 monthly searches for house for rent Hua Hin 140 monthly searches for Hua Hin house for rent 70 monthly searches for House for rent in Hua Hin The first two includes the exact same 5 words while the last one includes the stopword "in". That google have different search volumens for these very smilair search queries tells me that small differences matters. So how does that effect the way i shoulf write my: a)meta titles b)H1 I feel I get better sentences often by reordering the keywords etc. “Top tips on how to rent house in Hua Hin” Instead of “Top tips if you want a house for rent in Hua Hin” Do you use stop words like “in” hua hin. (only used in 25% of the searches queries)? Also would it matter if i write a plural form of a keyword instead of a singular etc propeties and sted of property? My goal is to write easy to read and unique content but i feel i can make exact matches if required with out compromising to much.
On-Page Optimization | | nm1977

0
Best wordpress theme seo 2014

In your opinion what are the best wordpress theme in 2014 that are responsive, good speed and seo buildup
On-Page Optimization | | maestrosonrisas

0
Using phrases like 'NO 1' or 'Best' int he title tag

Hi All, Quick question - is it illegal, against any rule etc to use phrases such as 'The No 1 rest of the title tag | Brand Name' on a site?
On-Page Optimization | | Webrevolve

0
What is the best way to have two online stores, each focusing on a specific country?

The dilemma here of course is that the stores will be very similar in content, with the domains only being different in that the store targeting the US will be a .com domain and the Canadian store is a .ca domain.
On-Page Optimization | | absoauto

0
Issue with old sitemap

Hi Quite new to SeoMoz so some learning curve but we have one issue on a site perhaps someone can advise on? We have many duplicate page titles / content, we think this was due to a corrupt sitemap.xml file, all of the URL's look like this with an odd page at the end http://www.totalpetsupplies.co.uk/problem.aspx?aspxerrorpath=/animals/Cat_Accessories_Pet_Collars/privacy.aspx So that XML map was removed well over a week ago, the new sitemap is an apsx generated one to get all pages correctly show as www.totalpetsuppies.co.uk/sitemap.aspx. Goolge and Bing have that. SeoMoz re did our site and the errors went up a bit!! Not sure how that process works, anyone any suggestions? Cheers Shaun
On-Page Optimization | | ShaunSizen

0
Spanish version of site - best practice?

I need to create a Spanish version of an existing site. My idea was to have the Spanish content switch out the English content if the query string had something like ?l=es. It would also drop a cookie so that all other pages would switch out content as well. I do want the Spanish content to be indexed and rank in the search engines, though. I would include all of the Spanish versions (with the ?l=es) in the site map and link to them on every page with a link to the Spanish version. Does anyone have any experience with this? Is this a bad idea? Thanks! Tom
On-Page Optimization | | TomBristol

0
What's the best way to name an image for SEO?

Hi Guys,
I'm thinking about images and SEO. What's the best way for naming and using images in HTML Code? For example: Image-Name: keyword-keyword2-keyword3.jpg or keywordkeyword2keyword3.jpg ?
How many Keywords should I use max for a picture? And also do you use the alt tag as description of the image and the title tag or only the alt tag? If you use the title, what do you use it for? Maybe someone can copy a HTML-Code example for me 😉 Thank you 🙂
Alex
On-Page Optimization | | krseo

0
Importance of Micro Formats

Hi All (this is my first Q, so I hope it is a reasonable one!). Ive just started looking into Micro Formats and, so far my understanding of them is a little bit limited. So.... 1. Is there SEO benefit in using these?
2. What is an appropriate use for them? Our website has a reasonable business directory on it (which is there for SEO purposes ultimately) - so am I correct in thinking that it would be prudent to use Micro Formats for all their contact details etc? I guess Im just not 100% sure on how and when to use them.. and what the real benefit is. But, I would love to know.. 🙂 Thanks heaps!
On-Page Optimization | | blitzna10

0