I need an XML sitemap expert for 5 minutes!
-
Hi all!
I'm hoping that someone with a lot of experience with XML sitemaps can help me out here...
When submitting my sitemap in Google Webmaster Tools, these are the results:
2,414,714 Submitted
34,721 IndexedAnd there's also tonnes of warnings.
Would anyone be able to take a quick look at these sitemaps to perhaps advise me on what's going wrong there? These do not load without the www, not sure if this is an issue?
http://www.eumom.ie/sitemap.xml
http://www.eumom.ie/sitemap.xml.gzThanks everyone in advance!!
Gavin
-
Few rules about sitemaps;
-
You should only include in them pages you also want crawled and indexed
-
They should not contain URLs with 404s or blocked by robots.txt
My guess is there are too many URLs in the sitemaps, since I'd guess the website is not over 2 million actual "real" pages,
Also, I randomly clicked on a URL in one of the sitemaps and it 404'd;
http://www.eumom.ie/forums/topic/oakhill-school-leopardstown-/
This is probably causing a lot of the errors you see. It's honestly not a 5 minute fix - but if it were my site, I would be using the Yoast SEO plugin and using the sitemap feature within Yoast. It makes it very easy to include / exclude certain pages and updated automatically etc.
I think there must be a way to tell your plugin what to include / exclude from the sitemap but I don't have as much experience with it.
But generally - only include pages you want crawled and indexed. Don't include pages that 404.
-
-
Hi all,
Many thanks for your input so far, much appreciated!
The sitemaps that you are seeing actually were generated using that plugin you mentioned. Formatting-wise, do you see anything wrong with the sitemaps?
Thanks!!
Gavin -
I couldn't agree more altecdesign!
http://wordpress.org/plugins/google-sitemap-generator/ all the way!
-
That XML sitemap you linked too is formatted in an odd way. I noticed the site you are generating the xml sitemap for is based in wordpress. There is a really solid sitemap plugin you could use to generate your XML and submit to google instead of the current plugin you are using: http://wordpress.org/plugins/google-sitemap-generator/
I've used that plugnin numerous times and submitted sitemaps to google with no errors. Hopefully that helps you out.
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
-
Protecting sitemaps - Good idea or humbug?
Is there a way to protect your sitemap.xml so that only Google can read it and would it make sense to do this?
Technical SEO | | Roverandom0 -
Not All Submitted URLs in Sitemap Get Indexed
Hey Guys, I just recognized, that of about 20% of my submitted URL's within the sitemap don't get indexed, at least when I check in the webmaster tools. There is of about 20% difference between the submitted and indexed URLs. However, as far as I can see I don't get within webmaster tools the information, which specific URLs are not indexed from the sitemap, right? Therefore I checked every single page in the sitemap manually by putting site:"URL" into google and every single page of the sitemap shows up. So in reality every page should be indexed, but why does webmaster tools shows something different? Thanks for your help on this 😉 Cheers
Technical SEO | | _Heiko_0 -
Sitemap errors have disappeared from my Google Webmaster tools
Hi all, A week ago I had 66 sitemap errors related to href langs in my GWT. Now, all the errors are gone, and it shows no errors. We have not done any work to fix the errors. I wonder if anybody has experienced the same thing, of Google suddenly changing the criteria or the way they report on errors in Google Webmaster Tools. I would appreciate any insights from the community! Best regards Peru
Technical SEO | | SMVSEO0 -
Do I still need to fix duplicate titles even though they have canonicalized?
Well, what can I say question is on the title 😛
Technical SEO | | atakala
Do I still need to fix duplicate titles even though they have canonicalized?
Thank you mozzers.
I LOVE u guyz.0 -
Google ranks my sitemap.xml instead of blog post
Hello, For some reason Google shows sitemap results when i search for my blog url website.com/blog/postwhy is Google ranking my sitemap but not a post, especially when i search for full URL? Thanks
Technical SEO | | KentR0 -
Is it best to create multiple xml sitemaps for different sections of a site?
I have a client with a very big site that includes a blog, videos, photo gallery, etc. Is it best to create a separate xml file for each of these sections? It seems to me like that would be the best way to keep everything organized. Or at least separate the blog out from the main site. Does anybody have any tips or recommendations? I'm not finding any good information about this.
Technical SEO | | MichaelWeisbaum0 -
Best XML Sitemap Generator for Mac?
Hi all, Recently moved from PC to Mac when starting a new job. One of the things I'm missing from my PC is G Site Crawler, and I haven't yet found a decent equivalent for the Mac. Can anybody recommend something as good as G Site Crawler for the Mac? I.e. I need the flexibility to exclude by URL parameter etc etc. Cheers everyone, Mark
Technical SEO | | markadoi840 -
Getting a Video Sitemap Indexed
Hi, A client of mine completed a video sitemap to Google Webmaster Tools a couple of months ago. As of yet the videos are still not indexing in Google. All of the videos sit on the one page but have unique URLs in the sitemap. Does anybody know a reason why they are not being indexed? Thanks David
Technical SEO | | RadicalMedia0