Removing Redirected URLs from XML Sitemap
-
If I'm updating a URL and 301 redirecting the old URL to the new URL, Google recommends I remove the old URL from our XML sitemap and add the new URL. That makes sense. However, can anyone speak to how Google transfers the ranking value (link value) from the old URL to the new URL?
My suspicion is this happens outside the sitemap. If Google already has the old URL indexed, the next time it crawls that URL, Googlebot discovers the 301 redirect and that starts the process of URL value transfer.
I guess my question revolves around whether removing the old URL (or the timing of the removal) from the sitemap can impact Googlebot's transfer of the old URL value to the new URL.
-
@travis-w So would i need to give a canonical tag to the redirect (destination) page also?
-
No, it won't.
I suggest doing as Google recommends, removing the old URL and adding the new URL to your sitemap.
The sitemap only helps index your pages and optimize which pages get crawled more frequently. It does not help with value transfer.
When Google crawls the new URL through your sitemap, I believe it will also see the 301 redirect pointing towards it.
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
-
Is a canonical tag required for already redirecting URLs?
Hi everyone, One of our websites was changed to non-www to www. The non-www pages were then redirected to avoid duplicate issue. Moz and Screaming Frog flagged a number of these redirected pages as missing canonical tags. Is the canonical tag still required for pages already redirecting? Or is it detecting another possible duplicate page that we haven't redirected yet? Also, the rankings for this website isn't improving despite having us optimising these pages as best as we could. I'm wondering if this canonical tag issue may be affecting it. Thank you.
Technical SEO | | nhhernandez0 -
URL Changes And Site Map Redirects
We are working on a site redesign which will change/shorten our url structure. The primary domain will remain the same however most of the other urls on the site are getting much simpler. My question is how should this be best handled when it comes to sitemaps because there are massive amounts of URLS that will be redirected to the new shorter URL how should we best handle our sitemaps? Should a new sitemap be submitted right at launch? and the old sitemap removed later. I know that Google does not like having redirects in sitemaps. Has anyone done this on a large scale, 60k URLs or more and have any advice?
Technical SEO | | RMATVMC0 -
Marketing URL
Hi, I need a bit of advice on marketing URL's. The destinations URL is http://www.website.com/by-development.php?area=Isle Of Wight&development=developmentname. If we wanted to use www.website.com/developmentname on literature to send people to the ugly URL above, what would we do? Would we need to rewrite the ugly URL to the neat and then 301 the ugly to the neat? Currently, the team are using a new domain of neatandrelevant.info and 301 redirecting it to ugly URL but there are lots of different developments they want to send people to so a new domain is bought for each development which seems a bit unnecessary. They point to different pages on the ugly URL website. Assuming canonical tag would not be needed then because the ugly URL page would be redirected. Also, as the website has ugly URL's anyway, would it not be best practice to use rewrites anyway so that the URL's read www.mywebsite.com/region/development? Would it confuse things to then have extra short marketing URL's missing out /region? Hope that makes sense....
Technical SEO | | Houses0 -
Should I do a 301 redirect
Hi Everyone, Hope you can help me out here. I have .co.uk & .ie website with similar content. On a particular section of the .co.uk website it is updated daily (Q&As, Blog posts etc) .ie does have this section but to a lesser degree, no daily updates etc, I was wondering if we should simply do a 301 redirect when someone is on the .ie website to .co.uk, it means the user is getting a much better experience however not entirely the consequences from search engines on this? Thanks
Technical SEO | | Paul781 -
OSE says URL redirects to URL with trailing slash but it doesn't.
Site is www.example.com/folder/us and OSE says this URL redirects to www.example.com/folder/us/, but it does not. When I look at the OSE report for the latter version with the "/" it says "No Data Available For This URL". Why would that be? The original URL is www.example.com and it redirects to www.example.com/folder/us. Is this anything I need to worry about? I thought that the trailing / doesn't really mean much anymore but nonetheless, why does it think it redirects there?
Technical SEO | | rock220 -
Redirection in two phases
Hi, One of my client want a website revamp in two phases. The first phase would be to move the CMS from Sharepoint to Drupal keeping the same content and URLs but the page extension will change (it could become php or just the name of the page without any extension) The second phase will be a content revamp with URL change. The first phase will last 3 weeks and then we will push the second phase with the new content and the new URL. Some shortcuts to make it a more readable: old url = OURL old url with new extension = OURLEX new URL = NURL My problem is how can I manage the redirections. Should I: Phase 1: create one rule that will redirect all the OURL to the OURLEX Phase 2: keep the rule I created in phase 1 and add rules for OURLEX to NURL Or Phase 1: create one rule that will redirect all the OURL to the OURLEX Phase 2: keep the rule I created in phase 1 and add redirect OURL to NURL Or Phase 1: create one rule that will redirect all the OURL to the OURLEX Phase 2: remove the rule I created in phase 1 and add redirect OURL to NURL Or Phase 1: create a rules for each OURL that will redirect all the pages to OURLEX Phase 2: remove the rules I created in phase 1 and redirect the OURL to NURL Or Phase 1: create a rules for each OURL that will redirect all the pages to the OURLEX Phase 2: keep the rules I created in phase 1 and add rules to redirect the OURLEX to the NURL Or something else you think is better Difficult to explain, let me know if it's understandable. Thanks for you help! GaB
Technical SEO | | Pherogab0 -
If a redirecting URL has more value than the website should I move it?
Client has two website addresses: Website A is a redirect to Website B. It has one indexed page. But this is the URL being used in collateral. It has the majority of back links, and citations everywhere list Website A as the URL. Website B is where the actual website lives. Google recognizes and indexes the 80+ pages. This website has very few backlinks going to it. This setup does not seem good for SEO. Moreover, the analytics data is completely messed up because Website B shows that the biggest referral source is... you guessed it Website A. I'm thinking going forward, I should: Move all the content from Website B to Website A. Setup Website B to permanently 301 Redirect to Website A. Is that the best course of action?
Technical SEO | | flowsimple0