What is the best way to format an xml sitemap?
-
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.
-
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).
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
-
Best Way To Write H1 to Get Max CTR?
Can anyone please share some guidelines regarding how to write the H1 subject of the post which can generate the maximum CTR.?. I noticed even when i able to rank on the featured snippet with good enough search volume the CTR is too low. Anyone share some expert advice please?
On-Page Optimization | | Asifseo5968621 -
XML Sitemap After On Page Changes
Hi everyone, could anyone please help me understand what to do next with the xml sitemap after making on page changes? For example, a website has an already existing xml sitemap and it's submitted to Google search console. We make changes to the website - URL structure, content, added new pages, 301 redirected broken links etc. for optimisation. Is there anything that we should do to change/update their current xml sitemap? Does it automatically update itself? Do we have to resubmit their xml sitemap to search console? Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | nhhernandez0 -
What is the best use of canonical ref on home (default/index) page?
Moz reports show duplicate content for my www.domain.com and www.domain.com/default.html How do I format the canonical ref to put on the default.html page?
On-Page Optimization | | bhsiao0 -
How to format URL if main key word is my domain name?
Hello All! I have a question about having my search term in my URL when the first two words are actually my domain name. For example, my domain is plutobeach.com and I want to optimize for events. Which is better? plutobeach.com/events plutobeach.com/plutobeach-events Is the latter keyword stuffing? I'm using the on-page grader here and wondering how much of a difference that can make. Thanks! Steve
On-Page Optimization | | recoil0 -
Ajax tabs and seo and sitemap
I am in the process of simplifying my website so that there are tabs in each section which load dynamically by ajax all of the subpages.Each subpage has funny url with a hashtag.
On-Page Optimization | | paddyaran
Does this mean each page does not have its title , or metatags?, Is this bad for seo?. Many of these pages have only a paragraph of text. I also am making a sitemap which links to the pages as a normal page. Would this mean I have a duplicate content issue with seo?.0 -
Do JSON feed / XML Feeds have any SEO benefits?
We are looking to use a 3rd party customer review provider and I have been told by their rep that it has a feature which allows us to display reviews placed with them about us on our website via JSON feed or XML feed (I have limited technical knowledge so have no idea what this is but am hoping our developer does!) I wanted to ask whether providing data in either format has any SEO benefits? My initial thoughts to provide customer reviews was to be useful to the customer and be useful for search engines as it will be continually updating user generated content (?) Any help on this would be greatly appreciated.
On-Page Optimization | | jannkuzel0 -
Best information organization for a new site?
I'm launching a new stain removal website, and wanted to know what would be considered the best way to organize the content? Since most articles will roughly involve "removing X from Y" or "how to remove Z," I can see two ways... 1. Organize articles by Stained Items, Stain Agents and perhaps Cleaning Detergents. 2. Spread the categories out more, to try and group stained items according to categories... E.g. Hard surfaces, delicates, fabrics, ceramics etc. Any thoughts on which of these two might be the best way to organize the site, or are there any better suggestions? Not sure what the main considerations are here... Either of these two seem equally user-friendly.
On-Page Optimization | | ZakGottlieb710 -
Best SEO structure for blog
What is the best SEO page/link structure for a blog with, say 100 posts that grows at a rate of 4 per month? Each post is 500+ words with charts/graphics; they're not simple one paragraph postings. Rather than use a CMS I have a hand crafted HTML/CSS blog (for tighter integration with the parent site, some dynamic data effects, and in general to have total control). I have a sidebar with headlines from all prior posts, and my blog home page is a 1 line summary of each article. I feel that after 100 articles the sidebar and home page have too many links on them. What is the optimal way to split them up? They are all covering the same niche topic that my site is about. I thought of making the side bar and home page only have the most recent 25 postings, and then create an archive directory for older posts. But categorizing by time doesn't really help someone looking for a specific topic. I could tag each entry with 2-3 keywords and then make the sidebar a sorted list of tags. Clicking on a tag would then show an intermediate index of all articles that have that tag, and then you could click on an article title to read the whole article. Or is there some other strategy that is optimal for SEO and the indexing robots? Is it bad to have a blog that is too heirarchical (where articles are 3 levels down from the root domain) or too flat (if there are 100s of entries)? Thanks for any thoughts or pointers.
On-Page Optimization | | scanlin0