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
-
Resolving 301 Redirect Chains from Different URL Versions (http, https, www, non-www)
Hi all, Our website has undergone both a redesign (with new URLs) and a migration to HTTPS in recent years. I'm having difficulties ensuring all URLs redirect to the correct version all the while preventing redirect chains. Right now everything is redirecting to the correct version but it usually takes up to two redirects to make this happen. See below for an example. How do I go about addressing this, or is this not even something I should concern myself with? Redirects (2) <colgroup><col width="123"><col width="302"></colgroup>
Technical SEO | | theyoungfirm
| Redirect Type | URL |
| | http://www.theyoungfirm.com/blog/2009/index.html 301 | https://theyoungfirm.com/blog/2009/index.html 301 | https://theyoungfirm.com/blog/ | This code below was what we added to our htaccess file. Prior to adding this, the various subdomain versions (www, non-www, http, etc.) were not redirecting properly. But ever since we added it, it's now created these additional URLs (see bolded URL above) as a middle step before resolving to the correct URL. RewriteEngine on RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.(.*)$ [NC] RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://%1/$1 [R=301,L] RewriteCond %{HTTPS} !on RewriteRule (.*) https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [R=301,L] Your feedback is much appreciated. Thanks in advance for your help. Sincerely, Bethany0 -
WP URL issue - Concatenated URLs (LOTS of them)
WP is doing this somehow, and creating URLs for hundreds of pages that don't exist. HOW is this happening, and how do I stop It? I have many, many URLS like this: https://www.atouchofrust.com/terms-of-use/atouchofrust.com/vendor-news. Of note, atouchofrust.com/terms-of-use, and atouchofrust.com/vendor-news are both legit pages on the site. Why they are being concatenated is beyond my limited understanding of WP. Please, somebody, help. Cori
Technical SEO | | FlyingC0 -
Not All Submitted URLs in Sitemap Get Indexed
Hey Guys, I just recognized, that of about 20% of my submitted URL's within the sitemap don't get indexed, at least when I check in the webmaster tools. There is of about 20% difference between the submitted and indexed URLs. However, as far as I can see I don't get within webmaster tools the information, which specific URLs are not indexed from the sitemap, right? Therefore I checked every single page in the sitemap manually by putting site:"URL" into google and every single page of the sitemap shows up. So in reality every page should be indexed, but why does webmaster tools shows something different? Thanks for your help on this 😉 Cheers
Technical SEO | | _Heiko_0 -
Why xml generator is not detecting all my urls?
Hi Mozzers, After adding 3 new pages to example.com, when generating the xml sitemap, Iwasn't able to locate those 3 new url. This is the first time it is happening. I have checked the meta tags of these pages and they are fine. No meta robots setup! Any thoughts or idea why this is happening? how to fix this? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | Ideas-Money-Art0 -
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 -
How to keep a URL social equity during a URL structure/name change?
We are in the process of making significant URL name/structure change to one of our property and we want to keep the social equity (likes, share, +1, tweets) from the old to the new URL. We have been trying many different option without success. We are running our social "button" in an iframe. Thanks
Technical SEO | | OlivierChateau0 -
301 redirect issues
Hi all, I'm hoping someone will be able to help me with an extermley frustrating problem with 301 redirects in .htaccess. Basically I'm trying to redirect some old pages (from our old website) that stil rank to the new equivilent. For example - old url = www.domain.com/frames/news/company-news/news-reader.php?newsStoryID=395 New www.domain.com/news/article-title I've tried the simple redirect 301 /frames/news/company-news/news-reader.php?newsStoryID=395 http://www.domain.com/news/article-title But this doesnt work. I've also tried - RewriteEngine on
Technical SEO | | EclipseLegal
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} ^newsStoryID=395$
RewriteRule ^/news-reader.php$ http://www.domain.com/news/article-title/? [L,R=301] Could anyone help? I've followed lots of tutorials that all match the above but it just doesn't work! The only other thing within the htaccess file is from wordpress for pretty permalinks - BEGIN WordPress <ifmodule mod_rewrite.c="">RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^index.php$ - [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]</ifmodule> END WordPress Many thanks in advance!0