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.
Do I need an XML sitemap?
-
I have an established website that ranks well in Google. However, I have just noticed that no xml sitemap has been registered in Google webmaster tools, so the likelihood is that it hasn't been registered with the other search engines. However, there is an html sitemap listed on the website.
Seeing as the website is already ranking well, do I still need to generate and submit an XML sitemap? Could there be any detriment to current rankings in doing so?
-
Thanks for all your help guys, much appreciated.
-
XML Sitemap is helping you to provide information to Google! Your website is small and ranking well is so, that's really good.
First of all, XML sitemap will not create any negative effect to your existing ranking. So, you have to go for XML Sitemap.
XML Sitemap can help you to measure total number of pages and existence of indexed pages. If your indexing value will go down so, you can drill down more to improve it.
One another thing, you can provide image information in your XML sitemap and that will help you to improve impression and clicks from Google image search.
And bigger picture is that, you'll never be small ... Your website will be big in future so, why should not start to follow standard practice of SEO to get maximum in future.
I hope, it will work for you!
-
XML Sitemaps are important for search engines. It makes their job easier. Even if you rank in the #1 position today you still want to take care of the maintaining your position. Especially for the simple stuff.
Here is a link for an XML Generator
I hope this helps and Good luck.
-
Look at your risk vs reward. The only "risk" here is the time involved in doing it.... which hopefully will not take you long- Even for a large site. The "reward" is making it easier for search engines to find your pages. ....And that can only be a good thing - right?
-
For the sites that I have added sitemaps to, no matter how small, it seems to only have helped. Either brought out some areas I could improve on or just general site architecture awareness which helped me see a bigger picture.
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
-
I want to load my ecommerce site xml via CDN
Hello Experts. My ecommerce site - abcd.com
Technical SEO | | micey123
My ecommrece site sitemap abcd.com/sitemap.xml
My subdomain - xyz.abcd.com ( this is blank page but status is 200 which runs from cdn) My ecommerce site sitemap abcd.com/sitemap.xml contains only 1 link of subdomain sitemap- xyz.abcd.com/sitemap.xml
And this sitemap- xyz.abcd.com/sitemap.xml contains all category and product links of abcd.com So my query is :- Above configuration is okay? In search console I will add new property - xyz.abcd.com. and add sitemap xyz.abcd.com/sitemap.xml So Google will able to give errors for my website abcd.com Purpose - I want to run my xml sitemap from cdn that's why i have created subdomain like xyz.abcd.com Hope you understood my query. Thanks!0 -
Image Sitemap
I currently use a program to create our sitemap (xml). It doesn't offer creating an mage sitemaps. Can someone suggest a program that would create an image sitemap? Thanks.
Technical SEO | | Kdruckenbrod0 -
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 -
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?
Technical SEO | | MickEdwards0 -
Link Volume - calculate what you need?
Hi everyone, an interesting question here. How do you determien what link volume you should try and get into your website? What analysis do you do to determine the number of links you feel is right to go into a back-link profiel every month? obviously there is no magic number but its an interesting question to know what others do. Obviously you don't want to build too many or too little. If you have been penalised for bad links in the past and are now back on track - how do you calculate the volume? Do you take links dropping out into consideration?
Technical SEO | | pauledwards0 -
How to generate a visual sitemap using sitemap.xml
Are there any tools (online preferably) which will take a sitemap.xml file and generate a visual site map? Seems like an obvious thing to do, but can't find any simple tools for this?
Technical SEO | | k3nn3dy30 -
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 -
How do I create a Video Sitemap for Youtube Embedded Videos?
I've been seeing a lot of people recommend creating a video sitemap or Media RSS feed (mRSS) and submit to Google. We have videos hosted on Brightcove and most on YouTube. Brightcove can generate the sitemap for us. But does anyone know how to generate a YouTube Video Sitemap for those videos embedded on our pages? Note: I realize I could manually assemble the video sitemap, however manually assembling the sitemap is probably not an option for us due to the volume of videos we've published.
Technical SEO | | LDS-SEO1