Sitemap Question
-
Hello,
I have a website and my sitemap (generated by the Yoast plugin) is set up into three different sections. One thing I noticed was that my homepage isn't in my sitemap.
Is this an issue? The homepage is indexed, but does it need to be added to the sitemap in order for it to be crawled?
How would I go about adding the homepage to the sitemap?
-
I don't think it's a big deal not to have it, but for something that can be done in literally 10 seconds I'd play safe than sorry.
To explain what I meant about the duplicate home pages, you can often have multiple versions accessible to the public. For example:
I haven't looked at how you have it set up, but all should go only to one version to prevent home page duplication, and the final version you decide on would be the one you include in the sitemap. Hope that helps!
-
Hi Brandon,
No, it shouldn't be an issue at all. I have it like that for a lot of the sites I run so it's not a big deal
If you feel uncomfortable with it, switch over to a separate plugin and deactivate the yoast one. I know a lot of people that do so (usually because they are comfortable using /sitemap.xml LOL)
-
Look in your site map file, and copy and paste one of the other url snippets. Change out the url for the url of your homepage. Make sure to double check the urls that were included, for any unusual urls. With cms-based sites, site map plug-ins can include non-sef urls, that you don't want indexed.
I usually make my sitemaps manually. You should include plenty of info, including creation date, last modified date, etc. If you need a template or would like me to send you a sample site map with the correct structure, let me know.
And to answer your question, yes, I would include the home page url. While you are at it, make sure your site cannot be accessed with www and no www.it should always go to one or the other. Same goes with index.php for the homepage.
Hope this helps!
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
-
Question: About Google's personalization of search results and its impact on monitoring ranking results
Given Google's personalization of search results for anyone who's logged into a Google property, how realistic and how actually meaningful/worthwhile is it to monitor one's ranking results for any keyword term these days?
Algorithm Updates | | RandallScrubs0 -
How can a site with two questionable inbound links outperform sites with 500-1000 links good PR?
Our site for years was performing at #1 for but in the last 6 months been pushed down to about the #5 spot. Some of the domains above us have a handful of links and they aren't from good sources. We don't have a Google penalty. We try to only have links from quality domains but have been pushed down the SERP's? Any suggestions?
Algorithm Updates | | northerncs0 -
To link or redirect? That is the question.
I have a site that I don't really use any longer but still has some okay rankings. I'd like to take advantage of the links point to that site. Is it better to redirect that site to my new one or to just place a link on the homepage pointing to my new site?
Algorithm Updates | | JCurrier0 -
Submitting Audio Sitemaps?
There are a number of pages on our website where Bands upload their latest tracks so visitors can listen to them. It occurred to me that maybe I am missing a trick and should submit an audio-sitemap.xml to Google. However I can't seem to find any articles about it on Google Help, but know that video and image sitemaps are used. Does anyone know if audio sitemaps can be submitted and if they are of SEO value? Website: http://goo.gl/CN0e5
Algorithm Updates | | Ubique0 -
Sitemap link in footer?? Is it needed
Hi, I know sitemap is important to have as it tells google the pages to crawl. I have an xml sitemap for google to crawl. However, Do I need a sitemap link in footer. Any thoughts?? Does it have any harm if I dont include a sitemap link in footer
Algorithm Updates | | pejman500 -
"No Follow", C Blocks and IP Addresses combined into one ultimate question?
I think the the theme of this question should be "Is this worth my time?" Hello, Mozcon readers and SEO gurus. I'm not sure how other hosting networks are set up, but I'm with Hostgator. I have a VPS level 5 which (I think) is like a mini personal server. I have 4 IP addresses, although it is a C block as each IP address is off by one number in the last digit of the address. I have used 3 out of the 4 IP addresses I have been given. I have added my own sites (some high traffic, some start-ups) and I've hosted a few websites that I have designed from high paying customers. -one man show, design them, host them and SEO them With the latest Penguin update, and with learning that linking between C Block sites is not a great idea, I have "No Followed" all of the footer links on client sites back to my portfolio site. I have also made sure that there are no links interlinking between any of my sites as I don't see them in the Site Explorer, and I figure if they aren't helping, they may be hurting the rankings of those keywords. Ok, so...my question is: "I have one IP address that I'm not using, and I have a popular high traffic site sharing it's IP with 5 other sites (all not related niches but high quality) Is it worth it to move the high traffic site to it's own IP address even though making the switch would take up to 48hrs for process to take affect? -My site would be down for, at the most 2 days (1 and a half if I switch the IP's at night) Is this really worth the stress of losing readers? Will moving a site on an IP with 5 other sites help the rankings if it was to be on it's own IP? Thank you very much ps- I can't make it to MOZcon this year, super bummed
Algorithm Updates | | MikePatch0 -
Big site SEO: To maintain html sitemaps, or scrap them in the era of xml?
We have dynamically updated xml sitemaps which we feed to Google et al. Our xml sitemap is updated constantly, and takes minimal hands on management to maintain. However we still have an html version (which we link to from our homepage), a legacy from back in the pre-xml days. As this html version is static we're finding it contains a lot of broken links and is not of much use to anyone. So my question is this - does Google (or any other search engine) still need both, or are xml sitemaps enough?
Algorithm Updates | | linklater0