12
votes
Accepted
sitemap.xml not rendered as XML document in browser
This suggests your HTTP server is delivering the sitemap with a text/html content type rather than an application/xml one.
You need to configure your server correctly.
- 1,608
10
votes
Is incorrect to have the HTTPS version of the sitemaps.org URL in the xmlns sitemap schema?
The value of the xmlns attribute is to uniquely identify a namespace (the "namespace URI"). It does not relate to whether your site is serving content over HTTP or HTTPS - for this it makes no ...
- 4,297
7
votes
Are alternate links included in the 50,000 URL limit for sitemaps?
As closetnoc suggests in comments, the 50,000 URL limit for sitemaps refers to the number of URLs in the sitemap file itself. ie. the number of <loc> elements. This is an individual sitemap ...
- 42.7k
7
votes
Accepted
Is incorrect to have the HTTPS version of the sitemaps.org URL in the xmlns sitemap schema?
You can validate your sitemap on https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools. It will give an error when you use https to refer to the schema.
I have also seen other sitemap validators that refuse to ...
- 86
6
votes
How important is it to include <lastmod> in a sitemap?
Most crawlers tend to ignore the lastmod tag as many webmasters do a poor job of keeping it up-to-date and forget to update it when they update content on the site. A sitemap is still important to ...
- 10.2k
6
votes
Accepted
Yoast SEO plugin creates XML Sitemap with http. Is this correct for a https site?
You need to disable and reenable the sitemap, going to SEO > Sitemap XML. It probably will solve your problem (Yoast bug).
- 144
6
votes
Do I need an XML sitemap for just a few images and videos?
As others have stated, a sitemap isn't necessary for such a small amount of content. If you really want to have one, then including everything on one sitemap is okay.
Can you combine an XML Sitemap ...
- 582
5
votes
Should I use HTTPS in sitemap URLs for SEO?
Your sitemap should include the links you want search engines to find and index. If you're providing HTTPS canonicals then this is what should be included in the sitemap. Giving a HTTP in your sitemap ...
- 5,874
5
votes
Is it okay to have multiple sitemaps?
Not long ago I was in the same boat when using WordPress plugin Yoast SEO it produced several sitemaps and I was curious to know which one to load to Google's Webmaster Tools Search Console I ran ...
- 681
5
votes
Accepted
What does url > lastmod in a sitemap really mean?
I just stumbled across Google's Best practices for XML sitemaps & RSS/Atom feeds, which describes lastmod as follows:
The last modification time should be the last time the content of the page ...
- 209
5
votes
Accepted
Google can't fetch large sitemap with 50k URLs, nor will browsers render it
You should test your sitemap with a downloading program such as curl or wget instead of using a browser like Chrome or Firefox. You should be able to download the file within 3 minutes with a ...
- 98.4k
4
votes
Accepted
Can HTML sitemaps be listed in robots.txt just like XML sitemaps?
Can I list sitemap.php in the robots.txt?
No, that wouldn't work. The XML Sitemap goes in robots.txt. The public-facing site map will be crawled by search engines like any other page.
- 7,785
4
votes
Do I need to update the sitemap.xml file after removing some URLs?
It is recommended to keep a sitemap.xml up-to-date and free of errors*.
If you merge the content of www.example.com/one-yellow.html and www.example.com/one-yellow-means.html into www.example.com/one....
- 626
4
votes
Accepted
Do you need to put links to pages like "password recovery" to the sitemap?
You should add the URLs of your pages which you want to get crawled and indexed.
Don’t you want your password recovery page to get crawled/indexed? Then don’t add it. (And if you want to disallow ...
- 21.7k
4
votes
Is it OK to "pause" an advert in terms of SEO?
1) Remove all links to the ad. If someone manages to come across the ad, then raise an error 404. When the ad resumes, the link becomes available again.
I think you need to get feedback on what users ...
- 42.7k
4
votes
How do you get a permanent link for Vimeo hosted videos for use in a video sitemap?
Well it appears you have 3 options.
1. Determine if the token is a temp token and doesn't expire/change and use it. (Most likely it does; there business model is to get the user to use the embedded ...
- 231
4
votes
Accepted
Why is the sitemap validator returning an error for the "lastmod" tag?
Per the schema, tLastMod is the union of xsd:date and xsd:dateTime.
Since you provide hours, you are not in the first case, so your string should conform to the XSD dateTime type, and it does not: ...
- 8,325
4
votes
Accepted
How often do search bots typically visit a website?
Search bots typically never stop visiting a website. Googlebot will typically download some pages every day. It may even download nearly as many pages per day as real users do.
Search bots almost ...
- 98.4k
4
votes
Accepted
If I remove URLs from an XML sitemap will Google still index them?
Sitemaps don't have much to do with indexing or rankings. You could remove URLs from your sitemap or even remove your sitemap entirely without hurting your SEO.
A sitemap isn't needed to get the ...
- 98.4k
4
votes
Accepted
Are hreflangs needed in the XML sitemap if they are used in the head of each page?
Wherever you put the hreflang is fine you have to use only one of the above methods. Find the methods suggested by Google here: Tell Google about localized versions of your page
Methods for ...
- 739
4
votes
Accepted
Should I index 404.html in my "sitemap.xml" file?
404 Pages exist to let the users/browsers know that the page does not exist. There is no reason or need to index a 404 page. As long as your 404 page passes the error code, it is fine.
- 988
4
votes
XML Sitemap Couldn't Fetch for about 2 months
This is a known bug of Google new search console. I thought there is some issue in my sitemap, so I have regenerated the sitemap and submitted but it throws the same error. If you look on the google ...
- 141
4
votes
Accepted
Why the new Google Search Console does not read my sitemap?
You may not be doing anything wrong at all.
"General HTTP error" can mean many things.
The Internet/Web is not a guaranteed delivery protocol. Things will go wrong from time to time. This is not ...
- 32.8k
4
votes
Accepted
Can you request refresh of the sitemap in Google Search Console?
Typically, you can simply submit the URL of the sitemap again via the Sitemap report in Google Search Console and it will be read soon after. However, if you have submitted the same URL many times in ...
- 833
4
votes
Accepted
sitemap.xml and serviceworker.js are location-sensitive files. But sensitive to the location in the request path or to the actual filesystem location?
Is it the location in the requested filepath, or the actual filesystem location?
The location is with regards to the requested URL-path (not strictly a "filepath"). The location of the file ...
- 42.7k
4
votes
Accepted
Redirect Errors in Google Search Console when trying to index site
<loc>https://-----.co.uk/contact</loc>
By the look of your robots.txt file, it would seem /contact (and I assume the other "folders") are physical directories on the filesystem. ...
- 42.7k
3
votes
Internal links to pages vs. sitemap.xml links to pages
Only having a page listed in your sitemap without any links to it isn't enough for SEO. See The Sitemap Paradox.
There is no guarantee that Google is going to index the URLs listed in your sitemap. ...
- 98.4k
3
votes
Are there specific advantages or disadvantages of an XML sitemap over a TXT based sitemap?
This is not an answer, but a caveat for XML sitemap wizard users. I recently did a tech & SEO overview of a site rebuild where an XML sitemap was auto-generated by a wizard. She failed to review ...
3
votes
Can I set a priority for images in a sitemap?
You can use structured data markup to specify which image you prefer as more meaningful to that webpage, so it is more likely to be used that image in SERP instead of the older one.
For https://...
- 2,634
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible