XML Sitemap that updates daily/weekly?
-
Hi,
I have a sitemap on my site, that updates but it isn't a XML sitemap. See here: http://www.designerboutique-online.com/sitemap/
I have used some free software to crawl the site and create a sitemap of pages, however I think that if I were to upload the sitemap, it would be out of date as soon as I listed new products on the site, so would need to rerun it.
Does anyone know how I can get this to refresh daily or weekly?
Or any software that can do it?
I have a web firm that are willing to do one, but our relationship is at an all time low and I don't want to hand over £200 for them to do one.
Anyone with any ideas or advice?
Thanks
Will
-
Hi Will,
The time required for installation and testing could vary according to whether there are compatibility issues to resolve on the server.
As an example - if we were to install an updated version of Wordpress for a client, that could be a 5 minute job, but the new version requires an updated version of PHP on the server and the age and configuration of the server may require patching (or even moving to a newer server) in order to install the correct version of PHP.
Then, with all of the software updated and the new version of WP installed, we would need to check and test the installation to ensure that the template is still good and nothing has broken.
So, a 5 minute job could easily turn into a 1 or 2 hour job and the need for the additional work will only become known when the installation is attempted (sucks to be us sometimes!)
For this reason, most web development companies will probably quote you a minimum of an hour to do the work. Having said that, the hourly rate you have quoted would be considered extremely high by our company.
I hope that helps,
Sha
-
Basically no one wants to touch the site, so were stuck with them for now.
They have come back to me with £100 for an hours work of testing the script, because they do not know what it contains.
How long does it take to install on server and do what you have to do to test it?
They are ripping us off, I know they are.
Cheers
-
Hi Will,
Ouch! That is a lot of money for what should be a straightforward task.
I think you may have missed what I said earlier in that the Unlimited version of XML-Sitemaps is ONLY available as a server install. You do not get a piece of software that enables you to generate the sitemaps externally and upload them.
There are other services around that enable you to generate externally via a web interface and upload. The paid version of freesitemapgenerator.com is one of these, but does require a verification file to be uploaded to the server before it can run. It is a simple text file that verifies ownership of the site.
In the end, if you are not happy with the service you are getting, you have the option to find another web development company who are a better fit for you. If you decided to do that, then the new company should be able to negotiate the change with the old company to minimize disruption.
It makes me a little sad to hear of clients who feel the way you do and I'm sorry that you have had a bad experience with our industry. Thankfully, there are plenty of good companies out there if you should decide that the situation is untenable for your business. For most of us, making things right for a customer who has not had the best of it is a priority.
I hope you can work it out without too much more stress
Sha
-
Hi, thanks for that. The reason I do not want to go with the company is because I think they are taking me for a ride. The website they designed is a rip off, over paid and under delivered. Something like this should have been included when it was set up, they quoted me £1200 to install PayPal as a checkout option, whereas a highly respected e-commerce designer firm quoted me £250.
It is not 2 hours work for them, no way. I would be happy with just using my defined update schedule, maybe every 3 days would be sufficient, even once a week is fine.
I have asked them can they upload etc.. so I will see what they say. I am more than likely to buy the software, generate myself and then they can upload it.
I mean, what harm can doing it myself do? It will work, it will deliver, just the same as it would if the web firm done it. As I see the only benefit of using the firm is so can put in fancy update features.
Thanks for your input.
Cheers
Will
-
Hi Will,
If their preference is to write their own script it is likely that they EITHER have had previous experience with a 3rd party script which proved difficult to configure OR they intend to add features or changes which would require a hack anyway.
As I see it you have 3 options:
-
Accept their offer to write a custom script. Given the fluid nature of your update schedule, the advantage of this would be that they may be able to add a "manual fire" option. This would effectively give you the ability to click a button and manually generate sitemaps (xml & html) and ping the search engines if you make updates more frequently than the auto-run schedule. If this were the case, the script could be configured to run weekly and you could update as needed.
-
You could ask them to install and configure the 3rd party script for you instead of using theirs. Given their preference for writing their own script, it is likely they may have internal issues which would influence whether they are willing or able to do this.
-
IF your site has less than 500 pages you could run the free version whenever products are updated and email the xml sitemap to your web development company for upload. While the use of the generator is free, the company is likely to set a fee for this service. Although a file upload is a very simple task, it can be very disruptive to production schedules to have to do this if it happens often. As a project manager I well understand the issues that this kind of small task can cause. I generally end up doing them myself because the company resources required to allocate and track the task are more than it is worth. End up with two or three clients who want a file uploaded once or twice a week and the novelty can wear off very quickly!
If it were me I would work from the assumption that the company has valid reasons for preferring to write a custom script and just ask them to explain it for you. What will the script do? How will it work? What are the benefits for you and for them?
In the end, you will need to make a judgement on what will be best for your business. If you can repair your relationship with the existing company there is no danger of disruption to your business through server change etc. Disruption can be avoided or minimized if sites are moved , but this requires co-operation from your current company and parting on a poor relationship sometimes doesn't inspire co-operation
Hope that helps,
Sha
-
-
They said they would be writing a script so the £200 is 2 hours work for them.
They will not provide me with FTP details, so all edits go through them. Only if I take the site away from their hosting will I have access to FTP.
What would you advise? Is the XML completely fine with that software and all the web design company would need to do is have it refreshed every week?
What refresh frequency would I be best having, daily, weekly? We have new products more than likely 1 or 2 times a week.
T
-
Hi Will,
You can just pay for the script and have your web company install it on the server. If you want to have it create image sitemap in addition to page structure sitemap there is a $5 image sitemaps add-on. So cost for both would be $24.99 US dollars plus whatever your web company charges to install the script.
To get the XML-sitemaps people to install it, all you have to do is provide them with your ftp login information. The advantage of this is that they know the script and how everything needs to be configured to make it work correctly.
Once the script is installed it will auto generate the sitemaps as scheduled (you would get them to configure frequency when they install it). Each time new sitemaps are generated the script then pings the search engines to notify that new sitemap is available for download.
The unlimited version only works as a server install. If you have less than 500 pages in your site you can run the free version and upload as often as you wish for no cost at all (as long as you have ftp access).
Not sure what the 200 pounds price is for, but my guess would be that they are either planning to write a script for you OR buy a 3rd party script like XML-Sitemaps & install & configure it for you.
Hope that helps,
Sha
-
Hi, the server is owned by the people who designed the site, so they host it. So I would need to get them to put it up.
How would XML-Sitemaps handle the installation if it is on the web companies server? Would they be able to?
If I can get the XML file ready, then I am sure the web company would upload it for free or maybe a small charge.
Let me ask you this to see if I am reading you correctly.
If I buy that software (of which I used the free version to generate 500 lines), it will create a sitemap for me, then once hosted on the server, will update everytime a new product/page is added to the site? Once updated it pings Google etc...?
Would it be worth including the images in the sitemap, as we have over 1000 images on the site, maybe 3-5 images per product. Would that then enable us to get our images into google images a lot easier?
Do you know what the difference between me using this and uploading it to server and paying a web design company £200 to do everything? Is there any?
Cheers
Will
-
Hi Will,
There are several companies out there which provide paid sitemap generation services by installing a script on your server which is set to automatically generate sitemaps and to ping the search engines whenever a new sitemap completes.
Probably one of the best that I know is the unlimited version offfered by XML-Sitemaps.com. The cost is only US$20 and if you cannot install it yourself they will handle installation for an extra $10.
There are others around and may even be some free scripts out there if you have the ability to install on your own server. There are also modules etc available for standard ecommerce platforms like Oscommerce etc.
Hope that helps,
Sha
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
-
Have Your Thoughts Changed Regarding Canonical Tag Best Practice for Pagination? - Google Ignoring rel= Next/Prev Tagging
Hi there, We have a good-sized eCommerce client that is gearing up for a relaunch. At this point, the staging site follows the previous best practice for pagination (self-referencing canonical tags on each page; rel=next & prev tags referencing the last and next page within the category). Knowing that Google does not support rel=next/prev tags, does that change your thoughts for how to set up canonical tags within a paginated product category? We have some categories that have 500-600 products so creating and canonicalizing to a 'view all' page is not ideal for us. That leaves us with the following options (feel it is worth noting that we are leaving rel=next / prev tags in place): Leave canonical tags as-is, page 2 of the product category will have a canonical tag referencing ?page=2 URL Reference Page 1 of product category on all pages within the category series, page 2 of product category would have canonical tag referencing page 1 (/category/) - this is admittedly what I am leaning toward. Any and all thoughts are appreciated! If this were in relation to an existing website that is not experiencing indexing issues, I wouldn't worry about these. Given we are launching a new site, now is the time to make such a change. Thank you! Joe
Web Design | | Joe_Stoffel1 -
Ability to Transition Completed Wordpress Website to New Coder/Developer
We have worked with the same Wordpress developer since 2012. They recently redesigned our Wordpress site. We purchased a real estate theme and they performed major modifications to it. The project took 8 months. There are many customized widgets and multiple plugins. We hired a new SEO. The SEO is very comfortable coding. The SEO performed certain modifications and the code broke. The original developer stepped in and and helped restore the code. The SEO stated that the site should not be so delicate; that too many plugins and widgets are used making it inherently unstable. The original developer is claiming that the SEO did not follow best practices (they did not use a dev server to test). For a non technical business owner this is very disturbing. We finally agreed that the new SEO would make changes on a dev server and the original developer will check these changes to ensure they do not break the code. My question is, shouldn't a Wordpress site be simple enough to hand over to a decent coder with little risk of breaking the code? Are there any standards regarding the hand over of a site? I am comfortable with my developers, but what if they change professions or close their company? How would I transition the site? There must be standards and protocols that allow a third party, such as an SEO to change code without causing havoc. Any one have some insight?
Web Design | | Kingalan11 -
Multiple websites for different service areas/business functions?
I'm wondering what the implications are for having multiple domains for different service areas of a company? I realize having multiple domains for one company can be troublesome because of the possibility of duplicate content, keyword cannibalization, and linkbuilding to multiple domains. But when the domains are for very different service offerings/unique business functions that each serve their own purpose (and have different positionings), is there a downside to having more than one domain? Any thoughts would be appreciated!
Web Design | | KevinBloom0 -
Requirements for mobile menu design have created a duplicated menu in the text/cache view.
Hi, Upon checking the text cache view of our home page, I noticed the main menu has been duplicated. Please see: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://www.trinitypower.com&strip=1 Our coder tells me he created one version for the desktop and one for the mobile version. Duplicating the menu cannot be good for on page SEO. With that said, I have had no warnings reported back from Moz. Maybe the moz bots are not tuned to looks for such a duplication error. Anyway, the reason the coder created a different menu for mobile in order to support the design requirements. I did not like the look and feel of the responsive version created based on the desktop version. Hi solution to this problem is to convert the Mobile version menu into ajax. what do you guys think? Thanks, Jarrett
Web Design | | TrinityPower0 -
Unable to submit sitemap in GWM.. Error
I recently published new EMD and installed WP on their. Now i installed the Plugin called Yoast <acronym title="Search Engine Optimization">SEO</acronym> and XML Sitemap. Now whenever i am trying to submit sitemap it shows "URL restricted by robots.txt" but you can see my robots file line written below: User-agent: *
Web Design | | xplodeguru
Disallow: /cgi-bin/
Disallow: /wp-admin/ But still it is showing same error.. i deactivate plugin and resubmit the sitemap but still no luck.. please help0 -
Given the lastest Google update, should I rewrite my Flash site or try to present an alternative HTML/CSS site?
I have a site that was created using Flash. The reasoning behind this was, at the time, that I didn't care if the site ranked or not (portfolio site). Now I would like to drive traffic to the site from SE's. Given the Penguin update, should I rewrite my Flash site in HTML/CSS or present an alternative site for bots and browsers that don't support Flash? My concern is that by presenting an alternative site to bots and non Flash supporting browsers that the SE's will see potentially see this as cloaking. Thoughts and advice would be much appreciated.
Web Design | | mj7750 -
Homepage and Category pages rank for article/post titles after HTML5 Redesign
My site's URL (web address) is: http://bit.ly/g2fhhC Timeline:
Web Design | | mcluna
At the end of March we released a site redesign in HTML5
As part of the redesign we used multiple H1s (for nested articles on the homepage) and for content sections other than articles on a page. In summary, our pages have many many, I mean lots of H1's compared to other sites notable sites that use HTML5 and only one H1 (some of these are the biggest sites on the web) - yet I don't want to say this is the culprit because the HTML5 document outline (page sections) create the equivalent of H1 - H6 tags. We have also have been having Google cache snapshot issues due to Modernzr which we are working to apply the patch. https://github.com/h5bp/html5-boilerplate/issues/1086 - Not sure if this would driving our indexing issues as below. Situation:
Since the redesign when we query our article title then Google will list the homepage, category page or tag page that the article resides on. Most of the time it ranks for the homepage for the article query.
If we link directly to the article pages from a relevant internal page it does not help Google index the correct page. If we link to an article from an external site it does not help Google index the correct page. Here are some images of some example query results for our article titles: Homepage ranks for article title aged 5 hours
http://imgur.com/yNVU2 Homepage ranks for article title aged 36 min.
http://imgur.com/5RZgB Homepage at uncategorized page listed instead of article for exact match article query
http://imgur.com/MddcE Article aged over 10 day indexing correctly. Yes it's possible for Google index our article pages but again.
http://imgur.com/mZhmd What we have done so far:
-Removed the H1 tag from the site wide domain link
-Made the article title a link. How it was on the old version so replicating
-Applying the Modernizr patch today to correct blank caching issue. We are hoping you can assess the number H1s we are using on our homepage (i think over 40) and on our article pages (i believe over 25 H1s) and let us know if this may be sending a confusing signal to Google. Or if you see something else we're missing. All HTML5 and Google documentation makes clear that Google can parse multiple H1s & understand header, sub & that multiple H1s are okay etc... but it seems possible that algorythmic weighting may not have caught up with HTML5. Look forward to your thoughts. Thanks0 -
Is my sitemap going to help me attract more visitors?
Hi, As I await my sitemap to go live, can someone tell me the main benefits of it? A Google sitemap that is .xml one. I have a images sitemap also as the site is an e-commerce store. Should I be expecting to see an increase in visitors when I implement it initially? Thanks Will
Web Design | | WillBlackburn0