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.
Should each new blog post be added to Sitemap.xml
-
Hello everyone,
I have a website that has only static content. I have recently added a Blog to my website and I am wondering if I need to add each new Blog post to my Sitemap.xml file? Or is there another way/better way to get the Blog posting index?
Any advice is greatly appreciated!
-
Hey Threebiz,
Introduction:
Having a sitemap (XML) is good for diagnostics and helping searching engines - to discover your content. It's something you should consider adding to your Google Webmasters Tools area as well. It will give you stats about pages it finds, and the index count, any errors, etc.
On point:
You shouldn't do this "addition" manually. For example, if you install one of the popular XML sitemap plugins for your WordPress (assumption made) installation - it will auto-create an entry for each new blog post - into the XML sitemap file in the root of your server.
One more thing:
If you have a highly trusted website - and a good organization of your links/navigation, etc - and that all pages are reachable by a link - a sitemap XML is just a bonus. Some will not even worry about it, just FYI.
Hope that helps! - Cheers, Jon
P.S.
On a related topic - some will go out and use a service like pingler.com to have your new blog "be discovered". It's something you might do on a brand new website, but not after that. No spamming!
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
-
Should I use a canonical URL for images uploaded to a blog post in Wordpress?
Hi, I have a wordpress website that has articles/news posts witch contain imagery. I've noticed that in the Media Library, when you upload an image to a blog post it generates a new permalink ...article-name/article-image-01.jpg I have Yoast SEO plugin and have the option to set a canonical URL for this image. Should I point it back to the actual article? Thanks for any helpers with this.
Technical SEO | Apr 11, 2018, 8:56 AM | Easigrass0 -
We switched the domain from www.blog.domain.com to domain.com/blog.
We switched the domain from www.blog.domain.com to domain.com/blog. This was done with the purpose of gaining backlinks to our main website as well along with to our blog. This set us very low in organic traffic and not to mention, lost the backlinks. For anything, they are being redirected to 301 code. Kindly suggest changes to bring back all the traffic.
Technical SEO | Nov 12, 2017, 10:15 AM | arun.negi0 -
Migrating to new subdomain with new site and new content.
Our marketing department has decided that a new site with new content is needed to launch new products and support our existing ones. We cannot use the same subdomain(www = old subdomain and ww1 = new subdomain)as there is a technically clash between the windows server currently used, and the lamp stack required to run the new wordpress based CMS and site. We also have an aging piece of SAAS software on the www domain which is makes moving it to it's own subdomain far too risky. 301's have been floated as a way of managing the transition. I'm not too keen on that idea due to the double effect of new subdomain and content, and the SEO impact it might have. I've suggested uploading the new site to the new subdomain while leaving the old site in place. Then gradually migrating sections over before turning parts of the old site off and using a 301 at that point to finalise the move. The old site would inform user's there is a new version and it would then convert them to the new site(along with a cookie to auto redirect them in future.) while still leaving the old content in place for existing search traffic, bookmarks and visitors via static URLs. Before turning off sections on the old site we would create rel canonicals to redirect to the new pages based on a a mapped set of URLs(this in itself concerns me as the rel canonical is essentially linking to different content). Would be grateful for any advice on whether this strategy is flawed or whether another strategy might be more suitable?
Technical SEO | Jun 29, 2015, 6:06 PM | Rezza0 -
Should Sitemaps be placed in the sub folder they reference?
I have a sitemap-index.xml file in the root. I then have several sitemaps linked to from the index in example.com/sitemaps/sitemap1.xml, example.com/sitemaps/sitemap2.xml, etc. I have seen on other sites that for example a sitemap containing blogs where the blogs are located at example.com/blog/blog1/ would be located at example.com/blog/sitemap.xml. Is it necessary to have the sitemap located in the same folder like this? I would like to have all sitemaps in a single sitemap folder for convenience but not if it will confuse search engines. My index count for URLs in some sitemaps has dropped dramatically in Google Webmaster Tools over the past month or so and I'm not sure if this is having an effect. If it matters, I have all sitemap files, including the index, listed in the robots.txt file.
Technical SEO | Apr 28, 2015, 1:12 PM | Giovatto0 -
Which Sitemap to keep - Http or https (or both)
Hi, Just finished upgrading my site to the ssl version (like so many other webmasters now that it may be a ranking factor). FIxed all links, CDN links are now secure, etc and 301 Redirected all pages from http to https. Changed property in Google Analytics from http to https and added https version in Webmaster Tools. So far, so good. Now the question is should I add the https version of the sitemap in the new HTTPS site in webmasters or retain the existing http one? Ideally switching over completely to https version by adding a new sitemap would make more sense as the http version of the sitemap would anyways now be re-directed to HTTPS. But the last thing i can is to get penalized for duplicate content. Could you please suggest as I am still a rookie in this department. If I should add the https sitemap version in the new site, should i delete the old http one or no harm retaining it.
Technical SEO | Dec 6, 2014, 3:28 PM | ashishb010 -
Is there a maximum sitemap size?
Hi all, Over the last month we've included all images, videos, etc. into our sitemap and now its loading time is rather high. (http://www.troteclaser.com/sitemap.xml) Is there any maximum sitemap size that is recommended from Google?
Technical SEO | Jul 16, 2014, 12:00 PM | Troteclaser0 -
Why is my blog disappearing from Google index?
My Google blogger blog is about 10 months old. In that time i have worked really hard with adding unique content, building relationships with other bloggers in the same niche, and done some inbound marketing. 2 weeks ago I updated the template to something cleaner, with a little more "wordpress" feel to it. This means i've messed about with the code a lot in these weeks, adding social buttons etc. The problem is that from some point late last week thurs/fri my pages started disappearing from Googles index. I have checked webmaster tools and have no manual actions. My link profile is pretty clean as its a new site, and i have manually checked every piece of content published for plagiarism etc. So what is going on? Did i break my blog? Or is something else amiss? Impressions are down 96% comparing Nov 1-5th to previous 5 days. site is here: http://bit.ly/174beVm Thanks for any help in advance.
Technical SEO | Nov 5, 2013, 2:13 PM | Silkstream0 -
Which is the best wordpress sitemap plugin
Does anyone have a recommendation for the best xml sitemap plugin for wordpress sites or do you steer clear of plugins and use a sitemap generator then load it up to the root manually?
Technical SEO | Jun 16, 2011, 11:17 AM | simoncmason0