Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Include pagination in sitemap.xml?
-
Curious on peoples thoughts around this.
Since restructuring our site we have seen a massive uplift in pages indexed and organic traffic with our pagination.
But we haven't yet included a sitemap.xml. It's an ancient site that never had one.
-
Given that Google seems to be loving us right now, do we even need a sitemap.xml - aside from the analytical benefis in WM Tools?
-
Would you include pagination URL's (don't worry, we have no duplicate content) in the sitemap.xml?
Cheers.
-
-
I wish you the best of outcomes!
-
OK thanks Alan. That's good advice. Our rel and next are working brilliantly. As you say we'll implement sitemap.xml with pagination to cover our bases.
Also, we'll be compartimentalising to measure index rates on various categories.
-
how's the site doing in Bing? Bing tends to not have such an easy time discovering pages, and I've often found a sitemap.xml file will help - and pagination pages would be included in that file. If you combine this with using the new rel=next / rel=prev markup Google has been asking for, you have all your big bases covered.
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
-
Category URL Pagination where URLs don't change between pages
Hello, I am working on an e-commerce site where there are categories with multiple pages. In order to avoid pagination issues I was thinking of using rel=next and rel=prev and cannonical tags. I noticed a site where the URL doesn't change between pages, so whether you're on page 1,2, or 3 of the same category, the URL doesn't change. Would this be a cleaner way of dealing with pagination?
Technical SEO | | whiteonlySEO0 -
Robots.txt and Multiple Sitemaps
Hello, I have a hopefully simple question but I wanted to ask to get a "second opinion" on what to do in this situation. I am working on a clients robots.txt and we have multiple sitemaps. Using yoast I have my sitemap_index.xml and I also have a sitemap-image.xml I do put them in google and bing by hand but wanted to have it added into the robots.txt for insurance. So my question is, when having multiple sitemaps called out on a robots.txt file does it matter if one is before the other? From my reading it looks like you can have multiple sitemaps called out, but I wasn't sure the best practice when writing it up in the file. Example: User-agent: * Disallow: Disallow: /cgi-bin/ Disallow: /wp-admin/ Disallow: /wp-content/plugins/ Sitemap: http://sitename.com/sitemap_index.xml Sitemap: http://sitename.com/sitemap-image.xml Thanks a ton for the feedback, I really appreciate it! :) J
Technical SEO | | allstatetransmission0 -
Should all pagination pages be included in sitemaps
How important is it for a sitemap to include all individual urls for the paginated content. Assuming the rel next and prev tags are set up would it be ok to just have the page 1 in the sitemap ?
Technical SEO | | Saijo.George0 -
Image Height/Width attributes, how important are they and should a best practice site include this as std
Hi How important are the image height/width attributes and would you expect a best practice site to have them included ? I hear not having them can slow down a page load time is that correct ? Any other issues from not having them ? I know some re social sharing (i know bufferapp prefers images with h/w attributes to draw into their selection of image options when you post) Most importantly though would you expect them to be intrinsic to sites that have been designed according to best practice guidelines ? Thanks
Technical SEO | | Dan-Lawrence0 -
The Mysterious Case of Pagination, Canonical Tags
Hey guys, My head explodes when I think of this problem. So I will leave it to you guys to find a solution... My root domain (xxx.com) runs on WordPress platform. I use Yoast SEO plugin. The next page of root domain -- page/2/ -- has been canonicalized to the same page -- page/2/ points to page/2/ for example. The page/2/ and remaining pages also have this rel tags: I have also added "noindex,follow" to page/2/ and further -- Yoast does this automatically. Note: Yoast plugin also adds canonical to page/2/...page/3/ automatically. Same is the case with category pages and tag pages. Oh, and the author pages too -- they all have self-canonicalization, rel prev & rel next tags, and have been "noindex, followed." Problem: Am I doing this the way it should be done? I asked a Google Webmaster employee on rel next and prev tags, and this is what she said: "We do not recommend noindexing later pages, nor rel="canonical"izing everything to the first page." (My bad, last year I was canonicalizing pages to first page). One of the popular blog, a competitor, uses none of these tags. Yet they rank higher. Others following this format have been hit with every kind of Google algorithm I could think of. I want to leave it to Google to decide what's better, but then again, Yoast SEO plugin rules my blog -- okay, let's say I am a bad coder. Any help, suggestions, and thoughts are highly appreciated. 🙂 Update 1: Paginated pages -- including category pages and tag pages -- have unique snippets; no full-length posts. Thought I'd make that clear.
Technical SEO | | sidstar0 -
Best XML Sitemap generator
Do you guys have any suggestions on a good XML Sitemaps generator? hopefully free, but if it's good i'd consider paying I am using a MAC so would prefer a online or mac version
Technical SEO | | kevin48030 -
Sitmap Page - HTML and XML
Hi there I have a domain which has a sitemap in html for regular users and a sitemap in xml for the spiders. I have a warning via seomoz saying that i have too many links on the html version. What do i do here? regards Stef
Technical SEO | | stefanok0 -
Content loc and player log tags for XML video site maps
I need a little help understanding how to create two of the required tags for a XML video site map for Google. 1. video:content_loc2.<video:player_loc< p=""></video:player_loc<></video:content_loc> Google explains their Video XML Site map requirements here:
Technical SEO | | dsexton10
www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=80472
Using the example on this Google Web Master Help page (where they explain all six of the required tags) , here are examples of the two tags I need help with: video:content_locwww.example.com/video123.flv</video:content_loc> <video:player_loc allow_embed="yes" autoplay="ap=1">www.example.com/videoplayer.swf?video=12...video:player_loc></video:player_loc> The video I am trying to optimize is located on a page on my site:
www.mountainbikingmaine.com/races/bradbury_hawk.html
This page has an embedded Vimeo video. So I don't have the video file on my domain. It is on Vimeo. Here is source code from my page that I think provides the information I need to create the two tags that Google requires. <iframe src="<a rel=" nofollow"="" href="http://player.vimeo.com/video/24580638?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0"" target="_blank">player.vimeo.com/video/24580638?title=0&...amp;portrait=0"</a> width="400" height="533" frameborder="0"></iframe> [vimeo.com/24580638">Bradbury](<a rel=) Mountain Maine Hawk Migration Count from [vimeo.com/user3219915">dan](<a rel=) sexton Using this source from my site, can you suggest what to put in the two tags? Thanks! Dan0