XML Sitemaps - how to create the perfect XML Sitemap
-
Hello,
We have a site that is not updated very often - currently we have a script running to create/update the XML sitemap every time a page is added/edited or deleted. I have a few questions about best practices for creating XML sitemaps.
1. If the site is not updated for months on end - is it a bad idea to force the script to update i.e. changing the dates once a month? Will google noticed nothing has changed just the date i.e. all the content on the site is exactly the same. Will they start penalising you for updating an XML sitemap when there is nothing new about the website?
2. Is it worth automating the XML file to link into Bing/Google to update via webmaster tools - as I say even if the site is never updated?
3. Is the use of "priorities" necessary?
4. The changefreq - does that mean Google/Bing expects to see a new file ever month?
5. The ordering of the pages - the script seems pretty random and put the pages in a random order - should we make it order the pages with the most important ones first? Should the home page always be first?
6. Below is a sample of how our XML sitemap appears - is there anything that we should change? i.e. all marked up properly?This XML file does not appear to have any style information associated with it. The document tree is shown below.
<urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9"><url><loc>http://www.domain.com</loc>
<lastmod>2013-11-06</lastmod>
<changefreq>monthly</changefreq></url>
<url><loc>http://www.domain.com/contact/</loc>
<lastmod>2013-11-06</lastmod>
<changefreq>monthly</changefreq></url>
<url><loc>http://www.domain.com/sitemap/</loc>
<lastmod>2013-11-06</lastmod>
<changefreq>monthly</changefreq></url></urlset>Hope someone can help enlighten us to best practices
-
1 Yes, Bing have stated that they will ignore the sitemap if it is not accurate
2. no
3, no
4 yes
5 no, use priorities for that
6 looks ok
I would look into using the Google and Bing sitemap generators, problem solved (if you have access to the server)
http://www.bing.com/blogs/site_blogs/b/webmaster/archive/2013/05/23/bing-sitemap-plugin-1-0-launch.aspx
http://googlesitemapgenerator.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/doc/gsg-installation.html
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
-
Sitemap - What are the recommendations on the number of links
Hi, I have a sitemap(s) which is very large(.i.e. 60000) links, is it recommended to have so many links and how come when I do a site search(site:mydomain) the number of links are less than on my site map?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | FreddyKgapza0 -
Can't generate a sitemap with all my pages
I am trying to generate a site map for my site nationalcurrencyvalues.com but all the tools I have tried don't get all my 70000 html pages... I have found that the one at check-domains.com crawls all my pages but when it writes the xml file most of them are gone... seemingly randomly. I have used this same site before and it worked without a problem. Can anyone help me understand why this is or point me to a utility that will map all of the pages? Kindly, Greg
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Banknotes0 -
Google News sitemap keywords
My company is a Theater news and reviews site. We're building a google news sitemap and Google suggests some recommended keywords we can use with their <keywords>tag: https://support.google.com/news/publisher/answer/116037</keywords> Our writers also tag their stories with relevant keywords. What should we populate the <keywords>tag with?</keywords> We were thinking we'd automatically populate it with author-added tags, in addition to one or more of the recommended ones suggested by Google, such as Theater, Arts, and Culture (all of our articles are related to these topics). Finally, many of our articles are about say, celebrities. An author may tag an article with 'Bryan Cranston,' and when this is the case we're considering also tagging it with the 'Celebrities' tag. Are all or any of these worthwhile?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | TheaterMania0 -
XML sitemaps questions
Hi All, My developer has asked me some questions that I do not know the answer to. We have both searched for an answer but can't find one.... So, I was hoping that the clever folk on Moz can help!!! Here is couple questions that would be nice to clarify on. What is the actual address/name of file for news xml. Can xml site maps be generated on request? Consider following scenario: spider requests http://mypage.com/sitemap.xml which permanently redirects to extensionless MVC 4 page http://mypage.com/sitemapxml/ . This page generates xml. Thank you, Amelia
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | CommT0 -
Sitemap.xml
Looking for a discussion for using sitemap.xml We have used them for years and I still see that Google has an area to submit your sitemap to but from everything I research, including Google, sitemaps seem to now-a-days be almost useless. What do you think and what has your research shown? Thanks everybody! Charles Mazzini
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seomozinator0 -
What are the SEO issues we should consider on a plug in that creates a custom home page based on zip code or GPS location.
We are developing a plug in the changes the home page relative to a users location or zip code. We believe this will provide users with a more personalized experience. We are concerned about how this might affect SEO. We are also wondering if we should partner with one of the SEO ply in developers. We were thinking about Yoast. Is there another partner that might be better? I would appreciate any feedback people can give.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Ron_McCabe0 -
XML Sitemap for classifieds
I have seeon some trends for sites which do not even use XML sitemp and robots e.g. see this site. How do you see if sitemap is not used. Also for classified websites, should ad pages be included in sitemap because after certain duration those ads will be deleted and google might not be able to crawl. What do you suggest about XML sitemap for classified website.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MozAddict0 -
Which is best structure for Multiple XML Sitemap?
I have read such a great blog posts on Multiple XML Sitemaps on following websites before a week. SEOmoz Distilled Google Webmaster Central Blog Search Engine Land SEO Inc I have created multiple XML sitemaps for my eCommerce website with following structure and submitted to Google webmaster tools. http://www.vistastores.com/main_sitemap.xml http://www.vistastores.com/products_sitemap.xml But, I am not satisfy with my second XML sitemap because it contain more than 7K+ product page URLs and looks like very slow crawling by Google! I want to separate my XML sitemap with following structure. With Root Level Category http://www.vistastores.com/outdoor_sitemap.xml http://www.vistastores.com/furniture_sitemap.xml http://www.vistastores.com/kitchen_dining_sitemap.xml http://www.vistastores.com/home_decor_sitemap.xml OR::: End Level Category http://www.vistastores.com/table_lamps_sitemap.xml http://www.vistastores.com/floor_lamps_sitemap.xml . . . . . . . etc.... So, Which is best structure for Multiple XML Sitemap?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | CommercePundit0