Do we need both an .XML Sitemap and a .aspx sitemap?
-
Hi Mozers,
We recently switched servers and it came to my attention that we have two sitemaps a XML version of the sitemap and a .aspx version of the sitemap. This came to light as the .aspx version of the sitemap is causing the site to come to a screeching halt as it has some complex code and lists over 80,000 products. My question is do we need both versions of the sitemap? My understanding is that the XML version is for Search Engine bots and the .aspx version is for customers. I can't imagine that anyone is using our .aspx version as it is basically a page with 80,000 links and it's buried away on the site, so we were hoping to kill off the .aspx version of the sitemap and keep the .xml version for Search Engine Bots. I wanted to check here first to make sure we did not any negative search engine implications. Any help would be most appreciated.
Thanks so much!
Patrick
-
Hi Greg,
Thanks so much you reply was most helpful!
Patrick
-
Hello,
The .XML will be fine to help search engines understand your site and its structures, there is a more user focused sitemap which isn't used as much now days and its to help humans use a site to how a bot might sort of but its not needed. Just make sure your .xml is up to date and all okay in search engine console and you should be good to go.
Hope it helps, best of luck.
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
-
Need suggestion: What is the best internal linking structure for our website to gain in SEO & UX too?
Hi all, We have 3 different editions of our product we are selling with 20 features. 1st edition & 2nd edition comes with 15 features in which 10 are common in each edition. 3rd edition comes with all 20 features. Now what's the best way to interlink and show the navigational menu to highlight 3 editions and features as well? Much appreciated if some one refer me a website with such structure. Thanks
Web Design | | vtmoz0 -
Sitemap and Privacy Policy marked for duplicate content?
On a recent crawl, Moz flagged a page of our site for duplicate content. However, the pages listed are our sitemap and our privacy policy -- both very different: http://elearning.smp.org/sitemap/ http://elearning.smp.org/privacy-policy/ What is our best option to address this issue? I had considered a noindex tag on the privacy policy page, but since we have enabled user insights in Google Analytics we need to have the privacy policy displayed and I worry that putting a noindex on the page would cause problems later.
Web Design | | calliek0 -
Needs clarification: How "Disallow: /" works?
Hi all, I need clarification on this. I have noticed we have given "Disallow: /" in one of our sub-directory beside homepage. So, how it going to work now? Will this "Disallow: /" at sub-directory level going to disallow only that directory or entire website? If it is going to work for entire website; we have already given one more Disallow: / at homepage level blocking few folders. How it is going to handle with two Disallow: / commands? Thanks
Web Design | | vtmoz0 -
Do I need to 301 redirect www.domain.com/index.html to www.domain.com/ ?
So, interestingly enough, the Moz crawler picked up my index.html file (homepage) and reported duplicate content, of course. But, Google hasn't seemed to index the www.domain.com/index.html version of my homepage, just the www.domain.com version. However, it looks like I do have links going specifically to www.domain.com/index.html and I want to make sure those are getting counted towards my overall domain strength. Is it necessary to 301 redirect in the scenario described above?
Web Design | | Small_Business_SEO0 -
Sitemap created on client's Joomla site but it is not showing up on site reports as existing? (Thumbs Up To Answers)
I am working with a web developer who built our client's site in Joomla. I seem to have a lot of issues with Joomla based sites. Any how, the site is www.pitgearusa.com and when we run site reports it is showing there is no xml sitemap. However he used a popular Joomla plugin for sitemaps called Xmap. Here is their url: http://www.jooxmap.com/ Can anyone provide any advice on what the website developer needs to do in order for the xml sitemap to function and "show up" on reports? Thanks Mashed Up
Web Design | | Atlanta-SMO0 -
Best way to indicate multiple Lang/Locales for a site in the sitemap
So here is a question that may be obvious but wondering if there is some nuance here that I may be missing. Question: Consider an ecommerce site that has multiple sites around the world but are all variations of the same thing just in different languages. Now lets say some of these exist on just a normal .com page while others exist on different ccTLD's. When you build out the XML Sitemap for these sites, especially the ones on the other ccTLD's, we want to ensure that using <loc>http://www.example.co.uk/en_GB/"</loc> <xhtml:link<br>rel="alternate"
Web Design | | DRSearchEngOpt
hreflang="en-AU"
href="http://www.example.com.AU/en_AU/"
/>
<xhtml:link<br>rel="alternate"
hreflang="en-NZ"
href="http://www.example.co.NZ/en_NZ/"
/> Would be the correct way of doing this. I know I have to change this for each different ccTLD but it just looks weird when you start putting about 10-15 different language locale variations as alternate links. I guess I am just looking for a bit of re-affirmation I am doing this right.</xhtml:link<br></xhtml:link<br> Thanks!0 -
Need an SEO pro to build us a new fine art website
Hey Seomoz friends My friends and I started buying and selling art 5 years ago. We did it all on ebay. Two years ago I decided to try an attempt at building us a website to further our business outside of ebay. www.originalartbroker.com I used homestead.com software aka intuit to do this. I was able to get a lot of first page results in seo after a ton of work and willing to do a lot more. I'm sure the homestead site slowed my efforts down. I need more power 🙂 What we do. We sell fine art. We are trying to aspire to the leading seller of fine contemporary art online. We will do whatever it takes to get there. Our issue is not our product. Our issue is getting traffic to the site. I only have 175-200 visitors a day. I need better results for the keywords of our artists and inquires that surround them. We have a bounce rate of 70%, average time on site of 1 minute 50 seconds, and a slow loading site that is almost impossible to create individual pages for pieces (mgmt nightmare) Outside of our site we have blogs, squidoo pages, facebook account with 2500 fans, twitter page with 2k followers, youtube channel, and a blog on the site for new arrivals. We have a 200-250 piece on our site at any given time. We add probably ten pieces on average a week. We don't need any kind of ecommerce management software as most of our sales are done over the phone being that it is higher end art. I need a site that out performs my competition. I need to be in the top three when someone types in "leroy neiman" "peter max" and so on. I, with limited knowledge, need to be able to use the software everyday to upload new art as it comes in. I want every piece to have its own page so that I can also add pieces to a google merchant account. When I add new pieces under a certain artists and it creates its own page i want it to create h tags and an url extension for each product as I add them based off the discription and artists name. I would like some sort of blog integration to post our new arrivals as we get them. I would like some sort of customer capture. I am thinking something along the lines of them prociding email, name, and zip code to see the prices on the site. You are the seo pro so you know what it takes. I would like to know what a solution would cost to get us on the ground with more seo power. A site with speed that is easily indexed. It doesn't need to have a lot of bells and whistles. Please look at my site and let me know what you think. You can get an idea from that of what we are doing. Please give me an idea of what you can do and what it would cost. Thank you
Web Design | | forecastedinvestments0