undefined
Skip to content
Moz logo Menu open Menu close
  • Products
    • Moz Pro
    • Moz Pro Home
    • Moz Local
    • Moz Local Home
    • STAT
    • Moz API
    • Moz API Home
    • Compare SEO Products
    • Moz Data
  • Free SEO Tools
    • Domain Analysis
    • Keyword Explorer
    • Link Explorer
    • Competitive Research
    • MozBar
    • More Free SEO Tools
  • Learn SEO
    • Beginner's Guide to SEO
    • SEO Learning Center
    • Moz Academy
    • MozCon
    • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
  • Blog
  • Why Moz
    • Digital Marketers
    • Agency Solutions
    • Enterprise Solutions
    • Small Business Solutions
    • The Moz Story
    • New Releases
  • Log in
  • Log out
  • Products
    • Moz Pro

      Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

    • Moz Local

      Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

    • STAT

      SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

    • Moz API

      Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

    • Compare SEO Products

      See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

    • Moz Data

      Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

    Track AI Overviews in Keyword Research
    Moz Pro

    Track AI Overviews in Keyword Research

    Try it free!
  • Free SEO Tools
    • Domain Analysis

      Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

    • Keyword Explorer

      Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

    • Link Explorer

      Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

    • Competitive Research

      Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

    • MozBar

      See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

    • More Free SEO Tools

      Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
    Moz Pro

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

    Learn more
  • Learn SEO
    • Beginner's Guide to SEO

      The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

    • SEO Learning Center

      Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

    • On-Demand Webinars

      Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

    • How-To Guides

      Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

    • Moz Academy

      Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

    • MozCon

      Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

    Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
    Moz API

    Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

    Find your plan
  • Blog
  • Why Moz
    • Digital Marketers

      Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

    • Small Business Solutions

      Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

    • Agency Solutions

      Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

    • Enterprise Solutions

      Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

    • The Moz Story

      Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

    • New Releases

      Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

    Surface actionable competitive intel
    New Feature

    Surface actionable competitive intel

    Learn More
  • Log in
    • Moz Pro
    • Moz Local
    • Moz Local Dashboard
    • Moz API
    • Moz API Dashboard
    • Moz Academy
  • Avatar
    • Moz Home
    • Notifications
    • Account & Billing
    • Manage Users
    • Community Profile
    • My Q&A
    • My Videos
    • Log Out

The Moz Q&A Forum

  • Forum
  • Questions
  • Users
  • Ask the Community

Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

  1. Home
  2. SEO Tactics
  3. Technical SEO
  4. Desktop & Mobile XML Sitemap Submitted But Only Desktop Sitemap Indexed On Google Search Console

Moz Q&A is closed.

After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.

Desktop & Mobile XML Sitemap Submitted But Only Desktop Sitemap Indexed On Google Search Console

Technical SEO
4
6
3.0k
Loading More Posts
  • Oldest to Newest
  • Newest to Oldest
  • Most Votes
Reply
  • Reply as question
Log in to reply
This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
  • AlisonMills
    AlisonMills last edited by Oct 20, 2017, 9:03 AM

    Hi!

    The Problem

    We have submitted to GSC a sitemap index. Within that index there are 4 XML Sitemaps. Including one for the desktop site and one for the mobile site. The desktop sitemap has 3300 URLs, of which Google has indexed (according to GSC) 3,000 (approx). The mobile sitemap has 1,000 URLs of which Google has indexed 74 of them.

    The pages are crawlable, the site structure is logical. And performing a Landing Page URL search (showing only Google/Organic source/medium) on Google Analytics I can see that hundreds of those mobile URLs are being landed on. A search on mobile for a longtail keyword from a (randomly selected) page shows a result in the SERPs for the mobile page that judging by GSC has not been indexed.

    Could this be because we have recently added rel=alternate tags on our desktop pages (and of course corresponding canonical ones on mobile). Would Google then 'not index' rel=alternate page versions?

    Thanks for any input on this one.

    PmHmG

    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
    • bridget.randolph
      bridget.randolph last edited by Dec 21, 2017, 12:29 AM Dec 21, 2017, 12:29 AM

      Hi Allison, any updates on this?

      From my understanding, it is possible that Google is not indexing the mobile versions of pages if they are simply corresponding to the desktop pages (and indicated as such with the rel=alternate mobile switchboard tags). If they have that information they may simply index the desktop pages and then display the mobile URL in search results.

      It is also possible that the GSC data is not accurate - if you do a 'site:' search for your mobile pages (I would try something like 'site:domain/m/' and see what shows up), does it show a higher number of mobile pages than what you're seeing in GSC?

      Can you check data for your mobile rankings and see what URLs are being shown for mobile searchers? If your data is showing that mobile users are landing on these pages from search, this would indicate that they are being shown in search results, even if they're not showing up as "indexed" in GSC.

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • topic:timeago_earlier,2 months
      • Joe_Stoffel
        Joe_Stoffel @AlisonMills last edited by Oct 27, 2017, 4:23 PM Oct 27, 2017, 4:23 PM

        Apologies on the delayed reply and thank you for providing this information!

        Has there been any change in this trend over the last week? I do know that subfolder mobile sites are generally not recommended by search engines. That being said, I do not feel the mobile best practice would change as a result. Does the site automatically redirect the user based on their device? If so, be sure Google is redirecting appropriately as well.

        "When a website is configured to serve desktop and mobile browsers using different URLs, webmasters may want to automatically redirect users to the URL that best serves them. If your website uses automatic redirection, be sure to treat all Googlebots just like any other user-agent and redirect them appropriately."

        Here is Google's documentation on best practices for mobile sites with separate URLs. I do believe the canonical and alternate tags should be left in place. It may be worth experimenting with the removal of these mobile URLs from the sitemap though I feel this is more of a redundancy issue than anything.

        I would also review Google's documentation on 'Common Mobile Mistakes', perhaps there is an issue that is restricting search engines from crawling the mobile site efficiently.

        Hope that helps!

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • AlisonMills
          AlisonMills last edited by Oct 21, 2017, 3:22 PM Oct 21, 2017, 3:22 PM

          Hi Paul and Joe

          Thanks for the reply!

          Responsive is definitely in the works...

          In the meantime to answer:

          • GSC is setup for the mobile site. However its not on a subdomain, its a subdirectory mobile site. So rather than m.site.com we have www.site.com/m for the mobile sites. A sitemap has been submitted and thats where I can see the data as shown in the image.

          • Because the mobile site is a subdirectory site the data becomes a little blended with the main domain data in Google Search Console. If I want to see Crawl Stats for example Google advises "To see stats and diagnostic information, view the data for (https://www.site.com/)."

          • re: "My recommendation is to remove the XML sitemap and rely on the rel=alternate/canonical tags to get the mobile pages indexed. Google's John Mueller has stated that you do not need a mobile XML sitemap file." I had read this previously, but due to the nature of the sub-directory setup of the site, the mobile sitemap became part of the sitemap index...rather than having just one large sitemap.

          Thoughts?

          Joe_Stoffel 1 Reply Last reply Oct 27, 2017, 4:23 PM Reply Quote 0
          • ThompsonPaul
            ThompsonPaul last edited by Oct 21, 2017, 4:00 AM Oct 21, 2017, 4:00 AM

            ASs joe says - set up a separate GSC profile for the mdot subdomain. The use that to submit the mdot sitemap directly if you wish. You'll get vastly better data about the performance of the mdot site by having it split out, instead of mixed into and obfuscated by the desktop data.

            Paul

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
            • Joe_Stoffel
              Joe_Stoffel last edited by Oct 20, 2017, 11:40 AM Oct 20, 2017, 11:39 AM

              Hi Alison,

              While this is a bit late, I would recommend moving to a responsive site when/if possible. Much easier to manage, fewer issues with search engines.

              My recommendation is to remove the XML sitemap and rely on the rel=alternate/canonical tags to get the mobile pages indexed. Google's John Mueller has stated that you do not need a mobile XML sitemap file.

              Also, do you have Google Search Console set up for both the m. mobile site and the desktop version? It does not seem so with all sitemaps listed in the one property in your screenshot. If not, I recommend setting this up as you may receive some valuable insights into how Google is crawling the mobile site.

              I'd also review Google's Common Mobile Mistakes guide to see if any of these issues could be impacting your situation. Hope this helps!

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
              • 1 / 1
              1 out of 6
              • First post
                1/6
                Last post

              Got a burning SEO question?

              Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


              Start my free trial


              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.

              • See all categories

              Related Questions

              • Hasanovic

                Google Not Indexing Pages (Wordpress)

                google search console indexed urls indexation

                Hello, recently I started noticing that google is not indexing our new pages or our new blog posts. We are simply getting a "Discovered - Currently Not Indexed" message on all new pages. When I click "Request Indexing" is takes a few days, but eventually it does get indexed and is on Google. This is very strange, as our website has been around since the late 90's and the quality of the new content is neither duplicate nor "low quality". We started noticing this happening around February. We also do not have many pages - maybe 500 maximum? I have looked at all the obvious answers (allowing for indexing, etc.), but just can't seem to pinpoint a reason why. Has anyone had this happen recently? It is getting very annoying having to manually go in and request indexing for every page and makes me think there may be some underlying issues with the website that should be fixed.

                Technical SEO | Nov 25, 2022, 2:55 PM | Hasanovic
                1
              • 21centuryweb

                Why images are not getting indexed and showing in Google webmaster

                Hi, I would like to ask why our website images not indexing in Google. I have shared the following screenshot of the search console.  https://www.screencast.com/t/yKoCBT6Q8Upw Last week (Friday 14 Sept 2018) it was showing 23.5K out 31K were submitted and indexed by Google. But now, it is showing only 1K 😞 Can you please let me know why might this happen, why images are not getting indexed and showing in Google webmaster.

                Technical SEO | Sep 22, 2018, 3:56 AM | 21centuryweb
                0
              • localwork

                Indexing product attributes in sitemap

                Hey Mozzers! I'm battling a few questions about the sitemap for my ecommerce store. Could you help me out? Is it necessary to include your product attributes in the sitemap? I'm not sure why it would matter to have a sitemap that lists everything in the color cherry. Also, if the attributes were included in the sitemap, would that count as duplicate content for the same products to show up in multiple attributes? Is there any benefit to submitting the sitemaps individually? For example, submitting /product-sitemap.xml, /product_brand-sitemap.xml versus just /sitemap.xml? Any other best practices for managing my ecommerce sitemap, or great resources, would be very helpful. Thank you! a1vUz

                Technical SEO | Jul 29, 2016, 3:49 PM | localwork
                0
              • SatishSEOSiren

                Meta Titles and Meta Descriptions are not Indexing in Google

                Hello Every one, I have a Wordpress website in which i installed All in SEO plugin and wrote meta titles and descriptions for each and every page and posts and submitted website to index. But after Google crawl the Meta Titles and Descriptions shown by Google are something different that are not found in Content. Even i verified the Cached version of the website and gone through Source code that crawled at that moment. the meta title which i have written is present there. Apart from this, the same URL's are displaying perfect meta titles and descriptions which i wrote in Yahoo and Bing Search Engines. Can anyone explain me how to resolve this issue. Website URL: thenewyou (dot) in Regards,

                Technical SEO | Dec 12, 2015, 8:53 AM | SatishSEOSiren
                0
              • Silkstream

                Why is my blog disappearing from Google index?

                My Google blogger blog is about 10 months old. In that time i have worked really hard with adding unique content, building relationships with other bloggers in the same niche, and done some inbound marketing. 2 weeks ago I updated the template to something cleaner, with a little more "wordpress" feel to it. This means i've messed about with the code a lot in these weeks, adding social buttons etc. The problem is that from some point late last week thurs/fri my pages started disappearing from Googles index. I have checked webmaster tools and have no manual actions. My link profile is pretty clean as its a new site, and i have manually checked every piece of content published for plagiarism etc. So what is going on? Did i break my blog? Or is something else amiss? Impressions are down 96% comparing Nov 1-5th to previous 5 days. site is here: http://bit.ly/174beVm Thanks for any help in advance.

                Technical SEO | Nov 5, 2013, 2:13 PM | Silkstream
                0
              • TomLondon

                Pages removed from Google index?

                Hi All, I had around 2,300 pages in the google index until a week ago. The index removed a load and left me with 152 submitted, 152 indexed? I have just re-submitted my sitemap and will wait to see what happens. Any idea why it has done this? I have seen a drop in my rankings since. Thanks

                Technical SEO | Mar 25, 2013, 5:36 PM | TomLondon
                0
              • askotzko

                Do we need to manually submit a sitemap every time, or can we host it on our site as /sitemap and Google will see & crawl it?

                I realized we don't have a sitemap in place, so we're going to get one built. Once we do, I'll submit it manually to Google via Webmaster tools. However, we have a very dynamic site with content constantly being added. Will I need to keep manually re-submitting the sitemap to Google? Or could we have the continually updating sitemap live on our site at /sitemap and the crawlers will just pick it up from there? I noticed this is what SEOmoz does at http://www.seomoz.org/sitemap.

                Technical SEO | Mar 13, 2012, 3:16 PM | askotzko
                0
              • sichristie

                Include pagination in sitemap.xml?

                Curious on peoples thoughts around this. Since restructuring our site we have seen a massive uplift in pages indexed and organic traffic with our pagination. But we haven't yet included a sitemap.xml. It's an ancient site that never had one. Given that Google seems to be loving us right now, do we even need a sitemap.xml - aside from the analytical benefis in WM Tools? Would you include pagination URL's (don't worry, we have no duplicate content) in the sitemap.xml? Cheers.

                Technical SEO | Oct 27, 2011, 8:10 PM | sichristie
                0

              Get started with Moz Pro!

              Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

              Start my free trial
              Products
              • Moz Pro
              • Moz Local
              • Moz API
              • Moz Data
              • STAT
              • Product Updates
              Moz Solutions
              • SMB Solutions
              • Agency Solutions
              • Enterprise Solutions
              • Digital Marketers
              Free SEO Tools
              • Domain Authority Checker
              • Link Explorer
              • Keyword Explorer
              • Competitive Research
              • Brand Authority Checker
              • Local Citation Checker
              • MozBar Extension
              • MozCast
              Resources
              • Blog
              • SEO Learning Center
              • Help Hub
              • Beginner's Guide to SEO
              • How-to Guides
              • Moz Academy
              • API Docs
              About Moz
              • About
              • Team
              • Careers
              • Contact
              Why Moz
              • Case Studies
              • Testimonials
              Get Involved
              • Become an Affiliate
              • MozCon
              • Webinars
              • Practical Marketer Series
              • MozPod
              Connect with us

              Contact the Help team

              Join our newsletter
              Moz logo
              © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
              • Accessibility
              • Terms of Use
              • Privacy

              Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.