Sitemap Folders on Search Results
-
Hello!
We are managing SEO campaign of a video website. We have an issue about sitemap folders.
I have sitemaps like ** /xml/sitemap-name.xml .** But Google is indexing my /xml/ folder and also sitemaps and they appear in search results.
If i will add Disallow: /xml/ to my robots.txt and remove /xml/ folder from webmaster tools, Google could see my sitemaps? or it ignores them?
Will my site effect negatively after remove /xml/ folder completely from search results?
What should i do?
-
Hi Ahmet
I don't think the sitemap indexed is an issue. Also I wouldn't block it with robots.txt - cause they won't be able to crawl it!
-Dan
-
Hi Ahmet,
You could give it at try by add the lines to your robots.txt for a second and testing your sitemap from within Google Webmaster Tools to see if it's working. I can't give you a definitive answer on this one. In the cases I handled I just accepted that these sitemaps were ranking for some long long long tail queries.
-
Hi Martijn,
I wonder if i block my sitemaps from robots.txt, could google bot reach my sitemaps?
-
Hi Ahmet,
I've seen this a dozen times, somehow Google thinks site maps are in some way great content as they are putting them within the search results. But by using the Disallow in your robots.txt Google won't be able to find your sitemap, or at least they will provide you with an error because you excluded them.
Hope this helps!
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
-
Can we compete for both videos and text results?
Hi, We have a ecommerce website that performs very well for our brand pages on the text results including the reviews snippet. Our brand pages also include embedded videos. Until now we have always ranked poorly on video results. Our videos are hosted over youtube. In order to boost our video result we have recently submitted a video sitemap to help crawlers find out our videos. The result is the following : our brand pages are now only competing in the video results space. Instead of showing as a text result with our reviews snippet, it shows as a video in a carrousel widget. Within the video tab we are ranking top. We have experienced a drop in CTR since then. Moz have reported a drop on all our brand keywords for text search although the video widget shows our brand there. Is there a way to compete for both videos results and text results, making the choice to keey the review snippet widget? Is the video sitemap useful only to compete within the video space? Cheers
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mattam1 -
Determining if video is a option for SERP Results?
Hi Guys, Looking to potentially create youtube videos and rank them on Google Australia for keywords around cosmetic brands. For example ASAP or Napoleon Perdis If you look at the top 10 SERP results example: https://d.pr/i/Tbkb5m for ASAP. There are no videos ranking which I think is strange or a very good opportunity. How would you determine if Google would rank a video on SERP results if there is none already? Cheers.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | kayl870 -
Hreflang in header...should I do a Sitemap?
A client implemented hreflang tags in the site header. MOZ says you aren't supposed to do an hreflang Sitemap as well. My question is how should I do a Sitemap now (or should I do one at all)?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | navdm0 -
How did my dev site end up in the search results?
We use a subdomain for our dev site. I never thought anything of it because the only way you can reach the dev site is through a vpn. Google has somehow indexed it. Any ideas on how that happened? I am adding the noindex tag, should I used canonical? Or is there anything else you can think of?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | EcommerceSite0 -
How to setup multiple pages in Google Search?
How to setup multiple pages in Google Search? I have seen sites that are arranged in google like : Website in Google
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Hall.Michael
About us. Contact us
Services. Etc.. Kindly review screenshot. Is this can achieved by Yoast Plugin? X9vMMTw.png0 -
Site: inurl: Search
I have a site that allows for multiple filter options and some of these URL's have these have been indexed. I am in the process of adding the noindex, nofollow meta tag to these pages but I want to have an idea of how many of these URL's have been indexed so I can monitor when these have been re crawled and dropped. The structure for these URL's is: http://www.example.co.uk/category/women/shopby/brand1--brand2.html The unique identifier for the multiple filtered URL's is --, however I've tried using site:example.co.uk inurl:-- but this doesn't seem to work. I have also tried using regex but still no success. I was wondering if there is a way around this so I can get a rough idea of how many of these URL's have been indexed? Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | GrappleAgency0 -
Canonical URLs and Sitemaps
We are using canonical link tags for product pages in a scenario where the URLs on the site contain category names, and the canonical URL points to a URL which does not contain the category names. So, the product page on the site is like www.example.com/clothes/skirts/skater-skirt-12345, and also like www.example.com/sale/clearance/skater-skirt-12345 in another category. And on both of these pages, the canonical link tag references a 3rd URL like www.example.com/skater-skirt-12345. This 3rd URL, used in the canonical link tag is a valid page, and displays the same content as the other two versions, but there are no actual links to this generic version anywhere on the site (nor external). Questions: 1. Does the generic URL referenced in the canonical link also need to be included as on-page links somewhere in the crawled navigation of the site, or is it okay to be just a valid URL not linked anywhere except for the canonical tags? 2. In our sitemap, is it okay to reference the non-canonical URLs, or does the sitemap have to reference only the canonical URL? In our case, the sitemap points to yet a 3rd variation of the URL, like www.example.com/product.jsp?productID=12345. This page retrieves the same content as the others, and includes a canonical link tag back to www.example.com/skater-skirt-12345. Is this a valid approach, or should we revise the sitemap to point to either the category-specific links or the canonical links?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | 379seo0 -
What are Benefits to Develop Large HTML Sitemap?
I've developed very simple HTML sitemap on Vista Stores. Today, I was checking Magento extensions and come to know about such a great extension. That will help me to create such a large HTML sitemap on my website similar to following one. http://wiredsport.com/sitemap/ http://www.breathalyzers.com/sitemap/ http://slindi.com/sitemap/ Which is best structure for HTML sitemap & Which are benefits to develop big HTML sitemap with all pages?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | CommercePundit0