Hi Guys,
I'm working on an ecommerce website with all the product pages using dynamic URL's (we also have a few static pages but there is no issue with them).
The products are updated on the site every couple of hours (because we sell out or the special offer expires) and as a result I keep seeing heaps of 404 errors in Google Webmaster tools and am trying to avoid this (if possible).
I have already created an XML sitemap for the static pages and am now looking at incorporating the dynamic product pages but am not sure what is the best approach.
The URL structure for the products are as follows:
http://www.xyz.com/products/product1-is-really-cool
http://www.xyz.com/products/product2-is-even-cooler
http://www.xyz.com/products/product3-is-the-coolest
Here are 2 approaches I was considering:
1. To just include the dynamic product URLS within the same sitemap as the static URLs using just the following http://www.xyz.com/products/ - This is so spiders have access to the folder the products are in and I don't have to create an automated sitemap for all product
OR
2. Create a separate automated sitemap that updates when ever a product is updated and include the change frequency to be hourly - This is so spiders always have as close to be up to date sitemap when they crawl the sitemap
I look forward to hearing your thoughts, opinions, suggestions and/or previous experiences with this.
Thanks heaps,
LW