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    4. Why do people put xml sitemaps in subfolders? Why not just the root? What's the best solution?

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    Why do people put xml sitemaps in subfolders? Why not just the root? What's the best solution?

    Intermediate & Advanced SEO
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    • McTaggart
      McTaggart last edited by

      Just read this: "The location of a Sitemap file determines the set of URLs that can be included in that Sitemap. A Sitemap file located at http://example.com/catalog/sitemap.xml can include any URLs starting with http://example.com/catalog/ but can not include URLs starting with http://example.com/images/." here: http://www.sitemaps.org/protocol.html#location

      Yet surely it's better to put the sitemaps at the root so you have:
      (a) http://example.com/sitemap.xml 
      http://example.com/sitemap-chocolatecakes.xml
      http://example.com/sitemap-spongecakes.xml 
      and so on...

      OR this kind of approach - 
      (b) http://example/com/sitemap.xml
      http://example.com/sitemap/chocolatecakes.xml and 
      http://example.com/sitemap/spongecakes.xml

      I would tend towards (a) rather than (b) - which is the best option?

      Also, can I keep the structure the same for sitemaps that are subcategories of other sitemaps - for example - for a subcategory of http://example.com/sitemap-chocolatecakes.xml I might create http://example.com/sitemap-chocolatecakes-cherryicing.xml - or should I add a sub folder to turn it into http://example.com/sitemap-chocolatecakes/cherryicing.xml

      Look forward to reading your comments - Luke

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • McTaggart
        McTaggart last edited by

        Thanks Angular Marketing, and Everett... very helpful feedback and much appreciated. Luke
        
        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
        • HiveDigitalInc
          HiveDigitalInc last edited by

          Consider this:  "The location of a Sitemap file determines the set of URLs that can be included in that Sitemap. A Sitemap file located at http://example.com/catalog/sitemap.xml can include any URLs starting with http://example.com/catalog/ but can not include URLs starting with http://example.com/images/." here: http://www.sitemaps.org/protocol.html#location

          B would not be an acceptable approach as http://example.com/sitemap/chocolatecakes.xml could only contain a sitemap of content located in http://example.com/sitemap.   For this same reason, you couldn't create sitemaps in subfolder directories...

          This is the best approach from those options you mentioned...

          (a) http://example.com/sitemap.xml 
          http://example.com/sitemap-chocolatecakes.xml 
          http://example.com/sitemap-spongecakes.xml
          http://example.com/sitemap-chocolatecakes-cherryicing.xml

          It is worth noting that you can have a sitemap of sitemaps.. so for example.

          http://example.com/sitemap.xml could contain links to http://example.com/sitemap-cakes,  http://example.com/sitemap-articles, etc..
          http://example.com/sitemap-cakes.xml could contain links to http://example.com/sitemap-chocolatecakes.xml, http://example.com/sitemap-vanilla-cakes.xml, etc..

          Try not to over-complicate things by trying to create sub-category sitemaps, etc.. Unless you have an exorbitant amount of sub-category pages, or have directories/sections managed by different cms, etc.

          You generally see large sites will have a separate sitemap based on content type (company pages, category pages, product pages, blog pages)

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 3
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