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
-
Hi Kent,
It sounds like your sitemap's link is included in another sitemap file or linked from a page. According to my research,you can add a X-Robots-Tag header to your .htaccess file. This is an old discussion, but I believe still relevant: http://www.webmasterworld.com/google/3971249.htm
Thanks,
Christine DeGraff -
"When I search for my blog url"
If you're searching
Then your sitemap is a relevant source of that post. In fact, probably the most reasonable result for your link other than the link itself.. Think about it like this - you're searching as if your URL is a keyword. Your "keyword" is on that page (likely the link you're searching for is on your sitemap). So Google returns a relevant site that has your "keyword" on it.
Note that this isn't the same as searching
site:website.com/blog/posttitle
It's interesting that it's returning the sitemap not the post but it may have to do with your settings on the post. For instance, if you had noindex on the post, your sitemap should come up #1. If you don't, that's curious at least. But yes, it makes sense.
-
Yes it hasn't been indexed, hmm that is strange, this blog post was posted a while ago,
-
Maybe the blog post hasn't been indexed yet? Try taking a sentence from the article and searching for it in Google and see if it returns any results.
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
-
Old Blogs
We have several blogs on our site for a range of products we no longer stock. Would you set up a redirect for these - and how long would you keep it in place?
Technical SEO | | Caroline_Ardmoor0 -
Should publish as page or blog posts on Wordpress ?
We have a technical blog website and our primary income is from blog. Recently we developed a open source free tool and but we are not sure if we need to publish it as wordpress page or as normal blog post. We don't look for an income from these tools. Later we will publish this tool in github. Also we have plan to develop many tools (small open source software) like this. So please advise we should place as Page mywebsite/tool1 mywebsite/tool2 or Normal blog posts mywebsite/toolcategory/tool1 mywebsite/toolcategory/tool2 Thanks!!!
Technical SEO | | Scaria0 -
Unstable ranking
Hello, I own a website wich lately (since like few months ago) have a unstable ranking, I mean that one day I get 800 organic visits (good sells) and then a week when organic visits fall to 700,600,500,400.. then up again Why does this happen? I am lossing ranking :S site : todorepuestoselectro(dot)com Thank you very much im learning a lot here!
Technical SEO | | matiw0 -
Google is ranking the wrong page
We are trying to figure out why google is ranking the wrong page for the key word motorcycle tires. We have a few ideas but are not sure yet. If you do a search for Motorcycle Tires you will see site on page 2 or top of 3; however, the page will be going to our dirt bike tires page (http://www.rockymountainatvmc.com/t/44/86/176/742/Dirt-Bike-Tires-All) not our Motorcycle page (http://www.rockymountainatvmc.com/t/49/-/181/750/Motorcycle-Tires-All) any thoughts? We think we know why but want others opinions too.
Technical SEO | | DoRM0 -
Not ranking on Google
Hi all, I am optimising a site which is a hotel directory for a small island in the Mediterranean - Malta. The site is www.maltahotelsonline.com. I did a keyword research and optimised the page. However I am now at link building stage. Since we do not have many links the site is still not ranking very well for the desired keywords (ranking fine on Bing and Yahoo yet not on Google). As a result there isn't much traffic on the site. 1. Is there any particular issue that you can spot on this site that is not allowing it to rank well on Google? 2. Any suggestions on link-building please?
Technical SEO | | ICON_Malta0 -
Google plus
" With a single Google search, you can see regular search results, along with all sorts of results that are tailored to you -- pages shared with you by your friends, Google+ posts from people you know" Would i be able to see my own post which i shared with someone in my Google plus circle, when i do a search ?
Technical SEO | | seoug_20050 -
Will rankings for my micro site rank better if I 301 redirect it to my main site?
This is my first time asking so I will try to be as clear as possible. Ok, I have a micro site that is an (exact match domain) and the domain is a couple 3-4 years old and ranks very well for several search terms. The main two terms it ranks for are like this. houses for rent in XXXXX XXXXX homes for rent (XXXXX equals a city name) The issue is this site has no backlinks, zero advanced SEO, I only did basic optimization to it when i set the site up. Even site structure, url structure all are not good.
Technical SEO | | Robbie8299
The only page I have ever even seen rank is the main root url. But with all that the site does really good in the top 1-2 results for key search terms. Now, I have a main site that is a very big site that has steadily been climbing in search terms every month with great backlinks, optimized for the city and all.
It currently ranks on second page for the listed search terms listed above. What I want to do is 301 redirect this microsite to my city page on my main site that is much better optimized for the key city terms.
The 301 redirect would point this "root domain" (mymicrosite.com) to my city page that looks like this. www.mymaindomain.com/city/XXXXXXX If I do this will Google rank my main URL city page as well as it ranks this microsite with zero links, seo, etc, etc. What happens if it does not? Will I be able to turn off the 301 redirect and keep the microsite rankings? My main reason for wanting this is I want this city page to rank well and I only want to optimize one site instead of both. Any help would be great!0 -
Sending signals to Google to rank the correct page for a set of Keywords.
Hi All, Out of all our keywords their are 3 that are showing our home page in the serps rather than the specific product page URL on Google.co.za (Google.com ranks the correct URL) Im not sure why this is happening as most links built using the anchor text are pointing to the correct page. Why would google prefer ranking our home page on local search and rank the correct page on Google.com? (only 3 keywords have this problem) I have tried to correct this by creating links from strong internal pages with anchor text pointing to the correct URL. I have also concentrated on building links from .co.za domains using the anchor text and correct URL but to no avail. It has been 2 weeks now, since i tried to sort it out, but im not sure what else i can do to tell Google to rank the correct page. Any ideas? Regards Greg
Technical SEO | | AndreVanKets0