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.
Adding multi-language sitemaps to robots.txt
-
I am working on a revamped multi-language site that has moved to Magento. Each language runs off the core coding so there are no sub-directories per language.
The developer has created sitemaps which have been uploaded to their respective GWT accounts. They have placed the sitemaps in new directories such as:
- /sitemap/uk/sitemap.xml
- /sitemap/de/sitemap.xml
I want to add the sitemaps to the robots.txt but can't figure out how to do it. Also should they have placed the sitemaps in a single location with the file identifying each language:
- /sitemap/uk-sitemap.xml
- /sitemap/de-sitemap.xml
What is the cleanest way of handling these sitemaps and can/should I get them on robots.txt?
-
Adding the following lines to the bottom of your robots.txt should do it:
Sitemap: http://www.example.com/sitemap/uk/sitemap.xml
Sitemap: http://www.example.com/sitemap/de/sitemap.xml
If you wanted to update the file names to be different it wouldn't hurt, but I don't think you would have any problems with how they are currently set up. If you have submitted them to WMT and they are being picked up ok I think you are fine.
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
-
Robot.txt : How to block a specific file type in several subdirectories ?
Hello everyone ! I need help setting up a robot.txt. I'm trying to block all pdf files in particular directories so I'm using this command. In the example below the line is blocking all .gif in the entire site. Block files of a specific file type (for example, .gif) | Disallow: /*.gif$ 2 questions : Can I use this command to specify one particular directory in which I want to block pdf files ? Will this line be recognized by googlebots ? Disallow: /fileadmin/xxxxxxx/xxx/xxxxxxx/*.pdf$ Then I realized that I would have to write as many lines as many directories there are in which I want to block pdf files. Let's say I want to block pdf files in all these 3 directories /fileadmin/directory1 /fileadmin/directory1/sub1 /fileadmin/directory1/sub1/pdf Is there a pattern-matching rule I could use to blocks access to pdf files in all subdirectories instead of writing 3x the above line for each subdirectory ? For exemple : Disallow: /fileadmin/directory1*/ Many thanks in advance for any insight you may have.
Technical SEO | | LabeliumUSA0 -
Automate XML Sitemaps
Quick question, which is the best method that people have for automating sitemaps. We publish around 200 times a day and I would like to make sure as soon as we publish it gets updated in the site map. What is the best method of updating a sitemap so it gets updated immediately after it is published.
Technical SEO | | mattdinbrooklyn0 -
Robots.txt on http vs. https
We recently changed our domain from http to https. When a user enters any URL on http, there is an global 301 redirect to the same page on https. I cannot find instructions about what to do with robots.txt. Now that https is the canonical version, should I block the http-Version with robots.txt? Strangely, I cannot find a single ressource about this...
Technical SEO | | zeepartner0 -
Are robots.txt wildcards still valid? If so, what is the proper syntax for setting this up?
I've got several URL's that I need to disallow in my robots.txt file. For example, I've got several documents that I don't want indexed and filters that are getting flagged as duplicate content. Rather than typing in thousands of URL's I was hoping that wildcards were still valid.
Technical SEO | | mkhGT0 -
I accidentally blocked Google with Robots.txt. What next?
Last week I uploaded my site and forgot to remove the robots.txt file with this text: User-agent: * Disallow: / I dropped from page 11 on my main keywords to past page 50. I caught it 2-3 days later and have now fixed it. I re-imported my site map with Webmaster Tools and I also did a Fetch as Google through Webmaster Tools. I tweeted out my URL to hopefully get Google to crawl it faster too. Webmaster Tools no longer says that the site is experiencing outages, but when I look at my blocked URLs it still says 249 are blocked. That's actually gone up since I made the fix. In the Google search results, it still no longer has my page title and the description still says "A description for this result is not available because of this site's robots.txt – learn more." How will this affect me long-term? When will I recover my rankings? Is there anything else I can do? Thanks for your input! www.decalsforthewall.com
Technical SEO | | Webmaster1230 -
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!
Technical SEO | | threebiz0 -
How would you create and then segment a large sitemap?
I have a site with around 17,000 pages and would like to create a sitemap and then segment it into product categories. Is it best to create a map and then edit it in something like xmlSpy or is there a way to silo sitemap creation from the outset?
Technical SEO | | SystemIDBarcodes0 -
Is it bad to have same page listed twice in sitemap?
Hello, I have found that from an HTML (not xml) sitemap of a website, a page has been listed twice. Is it okay or will it be considered duplicate content? Both the links use same anchor text, but different urls that redirect to another (final) page. I thought ideal way is to use final page in sitemap (and in all internal linking), not the intermediate pages. Am I right?
Technical SEO | | StickyRiceSEO1