XML Sitemap Issue or not?
-
Hi Everyone,
I submitted a sitemap within the google webmaster tools and I had a warning message of 38 issues.
Issue: Url blocked by robots.txt.
Description: Sitemap contains urls which are blocked by robots.txt.
Example: the ones that were given were urls that we don't want them to be indexed: Sitemap: www.example.org/author.xml
Value: http://www.example.org/author/admin/
My issue here is that the number of URL indexed is pretty low and I know for a fact that Robot.txt aren't good especially if they block URL that needs to be indexed. Apparently the URLs that are blocked seem to be URLs that we don't to be indexed but it doesn't display all URLs that are blocked.
Do you think i m having a major problem or everything is fine?What should I do? How can I fix it?
FYI: Wordpress is what we use for our website
Thanks
-
Hi Dan
Thanks for your answer. Would you really recommend using the plugin instead of just uploading the xml sitemap directly to the website's root directory? If yes why?
Thanks
-
Lisa
I would honestly switch to the Yoast SEO plugin. It handles the SEO (and robots.txt) a lot better, as well as the XML sitemaps all within that one plugin.
I'd check out my guide for setting up WordPress for SEO on the moz blog.
Most WP robots.txt files will look like this;
User-agent: * Disallow: /wp-admin/ Disallow: /wp-includes/
And that's it.
You could always just try changing yours to the above setting first,
before switching to Yoast SEO - I bet that would clear up
the sitemap issues.
Hope that helps!
-Dan ```
-
Lisa, try checking manually which URL is not getting indexed in Google. Make sure you do not have any no follows on those pages. If all the pages are connected / linked together, then Google will crawl your whole site eventually, just a matter of time.
-
Hi
when generating sitemap there are 46 URLs detected by xml-sitemaps.com but when adding the sitemap to WMT only 12 get submitted and 5 are indexed which is really kind of worrying me. This might be because of the xml sitemap plugin that I installed. May be something is wrong with my settings(doc attached 1&2)
I am kind of lost especially that SEOmoz hasn't detected any URLs blocked by Robot.txt
It would be great if you could tell me what should I do next ?
Thanks
-
The first question i would ask is how big is the difference. If the difference is a large in the # of pages on your site and the ones indexed by Google, then you have an issue. The blocked pages might be the ones linking to the ones that have not been indexed and causing issues. Try removing the no follow on those pages and then resubmit your sitemap and see if that fixes the issue. Also double check your site map to make sure you have correctly added all the pages in it.
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
-
Would a Search Engine treat a sitemap hosted in the cloud in the same way as if it was simply on /sitemap.htm?
Mainly to allow updates without the need for publishing - would Google interpret any differently? Thanks
Technical SEO | | RichCMF0 -
Despite proper hreflang and lang attribute implementation using xml sitemaps, I'm seeing sitelinks from different countries. Any help please?
When someone searches for our brand in US, instead of only US links, users are served with canadian or iranian sitelinks. Despite we have properly implemented xml sitemaps with hreflangs, even we have implemented lang attribute in the head section of source code for every country. I'd be thankful for any advice.
Technical SEO | | eset0 -
Issue with Title of Homepage - Wordpress Platform
I can't seem to get Google to read the title of my homepage the way I would like it to be read and I have double checked in all areas of my Wordpress Platform where the title may be defaulting and all it set up correctly. I have also ensured that the "force re-write of titles and meta descriptions" have been checked through a plugin I am using to monitor SEO (Yoast)... here is an example of how Google is reading my homepage title: XYZ Company: Primary Keyword in Ontario Canada - XYZ Company I would like it to read: Primary Keyword in Ontario Canada - XYZ Company But for some reason it keeps pulling in my website title. I have always re-submitted my URL to Google but no luck with the title change. If anyone has any insight as to why this is defaulting as such I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks!
Technical SEO | | MainstreamMktg0 -
Homepage indexation issue
Hello all, I've been scratching my head about this one for a while now... Let me explain the situation. I'm working on a multi-lingual website. Visitors are redirected (301) when they visit the homepage to the correct domain.com/en/default.html, domain.com/nl/default.html, domain.com/fr/default.html or domain.com/de/default.html based on browser language. I have doubts about the impact on the ability for Google to index the website because of that, but that's a problem for another day. The problem I'm having right now, is that domain.com/nl/default.html, domain.com/de/default.html and domain.com/fr/default.html are all indexed. When I search for the URL in Google I get the correct page on number one so I'm pretty sure those are indexed correctly. When I search for domain/en/default.html though, the homepage appears without /en/default.html extension. Does this mean Google assumes the domain.com page is the same as domain.com/en/default.html even though the redirect that's in place? Would be great if someone could shed some light on this. Thanks in advance!
Technical SEO | | buiserik0 -
Issue with Cached pages
I have a client who has a three domains:
Technical SEO | | paulbaguley
budgetkits.co.uk
prosocceruk.co.uk
cheapfootballkits.co.uk Budget Kits is not active but Pro Soccer and Cheap Football Kits are. The issue is when you do site:budgetkits.co.uk on Google it brings back results. If you click on the link it goes to page saying website doesn't exist which is correct but if you click on cached it shows you a page from prosocceruk.co.uk or cheapfootballkits.co.uk. The cached pages are very recent by a couple of days ago to a week. The first result brings up www.budgetkits.co.uk/rainwear but the cached page is www.prosocceruk.co.uk/rainwear The third result brings up www.budgetkits.co.uk/kids-football-kits but the cached page is http://www.cheapfootballkits.co.uk The history of this issue is that budgetkits.co.uk was its own website 7 years ago and then it used to point at prosocceruk.co.uk after that but it no longer does for about two months. All files have been deleted from budgetkits.co.uk so it is just a domain. Any help with this would be very much appreciated as I have not seen this kind of issue before.0 -
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 -
Strange duplicate content issue
Hi there, SEOmoz crawler has identified a set of duplicate content that we are struggling to resolve. For example, the crawler picked up that this page www. creative - choices.co.uk/industry-insight/article/Advice-for-a-freelance-career is a duplicate of this page www. creative - choices.co.uk/develop-your-career/article/Advice-for-a-freelance-career. The latter page's content is the original and can be found in the CMS admin area whilst the former page is the duplicate and has no entry in the CMS. So we don't know where to begin if the "duplicate" page doesn't exist in the CMS. The crawler states that this page www. creative-choices.co.uk/industry-insight/inside/creative-writing is the referrer page. Looking at it, only the original page's link is showing on the referrer page, so how did the crawler get to the duplicate page?
Technical SEO | | CreativeChoices0 -
Bing Sitemaps and Pending Status
Anyone know whats happening with the Bing Sitemap submissions and the Pending status? Mine has been pending for over a week now.
Technical SEO | | findachristianjob0