Which pages should I index or have in my XML sitemap?
-
Hi there,
my website is ConcertHotels.com - a site which helps users find hotels close to concert venues. I have a hotel listing page for every concert venue on my site - about 12,000 of them I think (and the same for nearby restaurants).
e.g.
https://www.concerthotels.com/venue-hotels/madison-square-garden-hotels/304484
Each of these pages list the nearby hotels to that concert venue. Users clicking on the individual hotel are brought through to a hotel (product) page e.g.
https://www.concerthotels.com/hotel/the-new-yorker-a-wyndham-hotel/136818
I made a decision years ago to noindex all of the /hotel/ pages since they don't have a huge amount of unique content and aren't the pages I'd like my users to land on . The primary pages on my site are the /venue-hotels/ listing pages.
I have similar pages for nearby restaurants, so there are approximately 12,000 venue-restaurants pages, again, one listing page for each concert venue.
However, while all of these pages are potentially money-earners, in reality, the vast majority of subsequent hotel bookings have come from a fraction of the 12,000 venues. I would say 2000 venues are key money earning pages, a further 6000 have generated income of a low level, and 4000 are yet to generate income.
I have a few related questions:
-
Although there is potential for any of these pages to generate revenue, should I be brutal and simply delete a venue if it hasn't generated revenue within a time period, and just accept that, while it "could" be useful, it hasn't proven to be and isn't worth the link equity. Or should I noindex these "poorly performing pages"?
-
Should all 12,000 pages be listed in my XML sitemap? Or simply the ones that are generating revenue, or perhaps just the ones that have generated significant revenue in the past and have proved to be most important to my business?
Thanks
Mike
-
-
Hi Chris,
thank you very much for your help and suggestions, it is much appreciated. I'll de-noindex a handful of my biggest artist pages and see if they attract much interest from users.
As for the /venues/ pages, these have been fairly neglected to date, so perhaps I need to really focus my attention on them, as you say, and bring in some cross referencing.
I have also wondered whether allowing companies to create pages dedicated to their events would be a good route to take - it could be done with ease, so perhaps I should investigate further.
Again, thanks very much, and hopefully I can report back with good news at some point.
Best wishes
Mike
-
I think they should be indexed, but keyword research should shed light on this topic for you. It will let you know if your audience is searching for those things and in what numbers. Even as they are, though, they might make sufficient landing pages for google. You could de-noindex a group of those pages at a time, starting with the ones most likely to be popular and see how google treats them. I think I'd go that route rather than release them into the wild all at once.
To me, the pages with the most interesting potential are the /venues/ pages like /venues/md-concert-venues/a, for example. I think the potential lies in populating them with venue grouping, upcoming artists grouping, and state. How hard would it be to populate an area above the black line with all/some of the upcoming artists playing near the hotels that show on that page. That 3-way cross referencing would make those pages fairly unique on the web and unique on your site and would give google a number of good reasons to send traffic there. They'd probably be good pages to publish advertising on, too.
Also wondering if there is a thing such as "licensing" dedicated pages out to companies/hotels that are putting on non-musical events like conferences, etc, so they can link to a kind of pre-fab hotels-close-by page up for their attendees?
-
Thanks Chris,
appreciate your comments. Google in indexing a high percentage of the key pages, and does not have any noindex pages indexed. Pages are loading at a decent speed. And only indexed pages are in the sitemap. So perhaps the non-performing pages are not something I should be particularly concerned about, especially they don't necessarily take up much of my time. I guess if I start to run into issues with overall site speed then perhaps then is is the time to consider whether they should continue to be listed. So perhaps, you're right, it's more of a business decision, rather than an SEO one.
I have a further question if you don't mind, which is related but I think is an SEO one. I have a large number of /artist/ pages - these are pages that list which venues a particular artist is performing at, and allows a user to then check hotel availability for the specific venue and date they will be attending. At the minute the pages are fairly light on content - they just list venues and dates, although I'm planning to start introducing more content in the near future. An example page can be seen here:
https://www.concerthotels.com/artist/hotels-near-guns-n-roses-events/1227
At the minute, I've noindexed every artist page on the site, because I was worried Google would see them as thin pages. But I actually think they are potentially very useful to users, and a powerful landing page for quickly taking a user to the correct venue page with the correct dates for the concert. I also think that not all users will search for "Hotels near Metlife Stadium" - they might instead search for "Hotels for Guns n roses in NJ..." etc etc. so perhaps I can pick up some long tail searches with these additional landing pages.
The question is, should I index these pages?
If the answer to that question is yes..... obviously, artists/bands do a tour and then generally disappear into a recording studio for a year or two - as a result, there will be many /artist/ pages that, for a while, have lots of useful event dates/venues listed, but at the end of the tour, the pages will simply be empty, and no longer useful, at least until the next tour. Would you recommend that such pages are indexed when there are events, but when no future events are listed, I set them to noindex?
Many thanks
Mike
-
Mike,
I'm wondering...is that an SEO question? It sounds like a business decision to me. From what you've said, I don't see any reason for Google to ding you on anything. My only questions would be--Is google indexing all the pages you want it to and does not have your noindex pages indexed? Any bad links coming in? Pages are loading at a decent speed? Oh, and I don't see a reason to have your noindex pages in the the sitemap.
Other than that, if those non-performing page are taking up time that you could be spending on more productive pages or on exploring more productive opportunities, then, again, it's time to put on your CEO cap.
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
-
Search Console rejecting XML sitemap files as HTML files, despite them being XML
Hi Moz folks, We have launched an international site that uses subdirectories for regions and have had trouble getting pages outside of USA and Canada indexed. Google Search Console accounts have finally been verified, so we can submit the correct regional sitemap to the relevant search console account. However, when submitting non-USA and CA sitemap files (e.g. AU, NZ, UK), we are receiving a submission error that states, "Your Sitemap appears to be an HTML page," despite them being .xml files, e.g. http://www.t2tea.com/en/au/sitemap1_en_AU.xml. Queries on this suggest it's a W3 Cache plugin problem, but we aren't using Wordpress; the site is running on Demandware. Can anyone guide us on why Google Search Console is rejecting these sitemap files? Page indexation is a real issue. Many thanks in advance!
Technical SEO | | SearchDeploy0 -
Titling Category Pages Like You Would a Blog Page?
So, with our 600 or so category pages, I was curious... on each of these category pages we show the top 12 products for that category. In trying to increase click through rate, I wonder if it would be prudent to use some of the strategies I see used for Blog posts with thee category pages. i.e. Instead of Category Name - Website Name How about: Top 12 Kitty Litters We Carry - View the Best and the Rest! Or something like that. And then in the description, I could put, "Number 8 made my jaw drop!!!" (Ok, kidding about that one...) But serious about the initial question... Thanks! Craig
Technical SEO | | TheCraig0 -
Is there a way for me to automatically download a website's sitemap.xml every month?
From now on we want to store all our sitemap.xml over the next years. Its a nice archive to have that allows us to analyse how many pages we have on our website and which ones were removed/redirected. Any suggestions? Thanks
Technical SEO | | DeptAgency0 -
Help! Pages not being indexed
Hi Mozzers, I need your help.
Technical SEO | | bshanahan
Our website (www.barnettcapitaladvisors.com) stopped being indexed in search engines following a round of major changes to URLs and content. There were a number of dead links for a few days before 301 redirects were properly put in place. And now, only 3 pages show up in bing when I do the search "site:barnettcapitaladvisors.com". A bunch of pages show up in Google for that search, but they're not any of the pages we want to show up. Our home page and most important services pages are nowhere in search results. What's going on here?
Our sitemap is at http://www.barnettcapitaladvisors.com/sites/default/files/users/AndrewCarrillo/sitemap/sitemap.xml
Robots.txt is at: http://www.barnettcapitaladvisors.com/robots.txt Thanks!0 -
How could i create sitemap with 1000 page and should i update sitemap frequently?
My website have over 1000 pages but the sitemap creator tools i knew only create maximum 500 pages, how could i create sitemap with full of my webpage?
Technical SEO | | magician0 -
Does google like Category pages or pages with lots of Products on them?
We are having an issue with getting Google to rank the page we want. To have this page http://www.jakewilson.com/c/52/-/346/Cruiser-Motorcycle-Tires rank for the key word Cruiser Motorcycle Tires; however, this page http://www.jakewilson.com/t/52/-/343/752/Cruiser-Motorcycle-Tires is ranking instead and it has less links and page authority according to site explorer and it is farther down in the hierarchy. I am wondering if google just likes pages that have actual products on them instead of a page leading to the page with all the products. Thoughts?
Technical SEO | | DoRM0 -
Home Page .index.htm and .com Duplicate Page Content/Title
I have been whittling away at the duplicate content on my clients' sites, thanks to SEOmoz's pro report, and have been getting push back from the account manager at register.com (the site was built here and the owner doesn't want to move it). He says these are the exact same page and he can't access one to redirect to the other. Any suggestions? The SEOmoz report says there is duplicate content on both these urls: Durango Mountain Biking | Durango Mountain Resort - Cascade Village http://www.cascadevillagehotel.com/index.htm Durango Mountain Biking | Durango Mountain Resort - Cascade Village http://www.cascadevillagehotel.com/ Your help is greatly appreciated! Sheryl
Technical SEO | | TOMMarketingLtd.0 -
XML Sitemap without PHP
Is it possible to generate an XML sitemap for a site without PHP? If so, how?
Technical SEO | | jeffreytrull11