What may be the reason a sitemap is not indexed in Webmaster Tools?
-
Hi,
I have a problem with a client's website. I searched many related questions here about the same problem but couldn't figure out a solution.Their website is in 2 languages and they submitted 2 sitemaps to Webmaster Tools. One got 100% indexed. From the second one, from over 800 URLs only 32 are indexed.
I checked the following hypothesis why the second sitemap may not get indexed:
- sitemap is wrongly formatted - False
- sitemap contains URLs that don't return 200 status - False, there are no URLs that return 404, 301 or 302 status codes
- sitemap contains URLs that are blocked by robots.txt - False
- internal duplicate content problems - False
- issues with meta canonical tags - False
For clarification, URLs from the sitemap that is not indexed completely also don't show up in Google index.
Can someone tell me what can I also check to fix this issue?
-
Hi Martijn,
This sitemap doesn't contain images at allI can't put the URL here in plain text, please see attached image.
-
Sorina, can you add your sitemap in here so we can take a look what possibly could go wrong? It's not uncommon that the urls within a sitemap don't get indexed. I mostly saw that with image sitemaps that over 70% isn't getting indexed.
-
Hi Jason and thank you for your answer.
The sitemap was just rebuilt a week ago, with the same idea in mind, maybe this will fix the problem. But it didn't... -
Hey Sorina,
I had a similar problem a while back and just rebuilt my sitemap, that seemed to take care of the problem for me. However, if that doesn't work for you, Google offers support via its "help articles". Here is something to look at: http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=35738.
I hope that 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
-
Google is indexing our old domain
We changed our primary domain from vivitecsolutions.com to vivitec.net. Google is indexing our new domain, but still has our old domain indexed too. The problem is that the old site is timing out because of the https: Thought on how to make the old indexing go away or properly forward the https?
Technical SEO | | AdsposureDev0 -
Is there a maximum sitemap size?
Hi all, Over the last month we've included all images, videos, etc. into our sitemap and now its loading time is rather high. (http://www.troteclaser.com/sitemap.xml) Is there any maximum sitemap size that is recommended from Google?
Technical SEO | | Troteclaser0 -
Sitemap Generator Tool
We have developed a very large domain with well over 500 pages that need to be indexed. The tool we usually use to create a sitemap has a limit of 500 pages. Does anyone know of good tool we can use to create a sitemap text and xml that doesn't have a limit of pages? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | TracSoft0 -
Site (Subdomain) Removal from Webmaster Tools
We have two subdomains that have been verified in Google Webmaster Tools. These subdomains were used by 3rd parties which we no longer have an affiliation with (the subdomains no longer serve a purpose). We have been receiving an error message from Google: "Googlebot can't access your site. Over the last 24 hours, Googlebot encountered 1 errors while attempting to retrieve DNS information for your site. The overall error rate for DNS queries for your site is 100.00%". I originally investigated using Webmaster Tools' URL Removal Tool to remove the subdomain, but there are no indexed pages. Is this a case of simply 'deleting' the site from the Manage Site tab in the Webmaster Tools interface?
Technical SEO | | Cary_PCC0 -
Does this content get indexed?
A lot of content on this site is displayed in pop up pages. Eg. Visit the Title page http://www.landgate.wa.gov.au/corporate.nsf/web/Certificate+of+Title To access the sample report or fee details, the info is shown in a pop up page with a strange url. Example: http://www.landgate.wa.gov.au/corporate.nsf/web/Certificate+of+Title+-+Fee+Details I can't see any of these pages being indexed in Google or other search engines when I do a site search: http://www.landgate.wa.gov.au/corporate.nsf/web/Certificate+of+Title+-+Fee+Details Is there a way to get this content indexed besides telling the client to restructure this content?
Technical SEO | | Bigheadigital0 -
Submitting Sitemap File vs Sitemap Index File
Is it better to submit all sitemap files contained in a Sitemap Index File manually to Google or is it about the same as just submitting the Master Sitemap Index File.
Technical SEO | | AU-SEO0 -
Crawl Errors In Webmaster Tools
Hi Guys, Searched the web in an answer to the importance of crawl errors in Webmaster tools but keep coming up with different answers. I have been working on a clients site for the last two months and (just completed one months of link bulding), however seems I have inherited issues I wasn't aware of from the previous guy that did the site. The site is currently at page 6 for the keyphrase 'boiler spares' with a keyword rich domain and a good onpage plan. Over the last couple of weeks he has been as high as page 4, only to be pushed back to page 8 and now settled at page 6. The only issue I can seem to find with the site in webmaster tools is crawl errors here are the stats:- In sitemaps : 123 Not Found : 2,079 Restricted by robots.txt 1 Unreachable: 2 I have read that ecommerce sites can often give off false negatives in terms of crawl errors from Google, however, these not found crawl errors are being linked from pages within the site. How have others solved the issue of crawl errors on ecommerce sites? could this be the reason for the bouncing round in the rankings or is it just a competitive niche and I need to be patient? Kind Regards Neil
Technical SEO | | optimiz10 -
Block a sub-domain from being indexed
This is a pretty quick and simple (i'm hoping) question. What is the best way to completely block a sub domain from getting indexed from all search engines? One item i cannot use is the meta "no follow" tag. Thanks! - Kyle
Technical SEO | | kchandler0