Clean Up XML Sitemaps with Search Console – Practical Ecommerce

An XML sitemap helps Google crawl a site, understand its structure, and discover more pages.
For years Google has asserted XML sitemaps in Search Console don’t directly help rankings, but in my experience a sitemap often provides a boost in organic traffic, especially for new sites and those with thousands of pages or more.
The screenshot below from Search Console is for traffic to a new hobby site that submitted a sitemap in late May 2023. Organic search traffic improved in early June and then declined a couple of months later, but not to the previous level.
Organic search traffic to a new hobby site quickly improved after submitting a sitemap and then declined, but not to the previous level. Click image to enlarge.
Presumably Google values sitemaps, or it wouldn’t include them in Seach Console. But they’re helpful only when properly formatted and error-free. I’ve seen many sitemaps containing broken URLs or pages with noindex tags or blocked from crawling.
A sitemap should be a clear path for Google to navigate the site and include only URLs intended to drive traffic.
To verify, submit the sitemap to Search Console and allow a few weeks for Google to crawl your site. Then return to Search Console and navigate to Indexing > Sitemaps. Click “See page indexing” beneath the three dots beside the sitemap URL.
To verify a sitemap, navigate in Search Console to Indexing > Sitemaps. Click “See page indexing” beneath the three dots beside the sitemap URL. Click image to enlarge.
In the report, look for reasons for not indexing, such as:
Remove all those URLs from the sitemap or fix the errors.
Google ignores priority and changefreq sitemap attributes. There’s no way to instruct Google which pages are important, although including only indexable pages in a sitemap is a good first step.
Search Console’s “See page indexing” report lists reasons “Why pages aren’t indexed.” Click image to enlarge.
Using sitemaps, Search Console can identify pages with videos, although in my testing the primary sitemap page showed, incorrectly, only zeros in the “Discovered videos” column, presumably due to a bug.
Search Console’s primary sitemap page lists zeros under the “Discovered videos,” likely due to a bug. Click image to enlarge.
Ignore the zeroes and check the “See video page indexation” report listing the URLs from that sitemap with indexed videos or errors.
The “See video page indexation” report lists the URLs with indexed videos or errors. Click image to enlarge.
Cleaning up sitemaps ensures smooth crawls from Googlebot and thus elevated indexing. Error-free sitemaps are especially important for sites with thousands (or millions) of URLs or many under the “Discovered but not crawled” and “Crawled but not yet indexed” categories.
Copyright © 2005 – 2023.
Practical Ecommerce® is a
registered trademark of
Confluence Distribution, Inc.

source

Related Posts

Google Strengthens Search Console Security With Token Removal Tools – Search Engine Journal

Stay ahead of the game with the best marketing tools and ensure your tactics are primed for success in this new era of digital marketing.This webinar will equip you with…

Read more

Google Search Console security update improves management of ownership tokens – Search Engine Land

sel logoSearch Engine Land » SEO » Google Search Console security update improves management of ownership tokensChat with SearchBot Please note that your conversations will be recorded. SearchBot: I am…

Read more

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Market Size Worth USD 157.41 Billion in 2032 | Emergen Research – Yahoo Finance

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Market Size Worth USD 157.41 Billion in 2032 | Emergen Research  Yahoo Financesource

Read more

AI Prompt Engineering Tips for SEO – JumpFly PPC Advertising News

AI Prompt Engineering Tips for SEO  JumpFly PPC Advertising Newssource

Read more

Most Common B2B SaaS SEO Mistakes – MarketingProfs.com

by Ryan Lingenfelser Many B2B SaaS companies ignore SEO… and they are often right to do so!For SMBs, especially startups, it rarely makes sense to prioritize SEO. Compared with marketing…

Read more

How To Create an XML Sitemap To Improve Your Website’s SEO (2023) – Shopify

Start your businessBuild your brandCreate your websiteOnline store editorCustomize your storeStore themesFind business appsShopify app storeOwn your site domainDomains & hostingExplore free business toolsTools to run your businessSell your productsSell…

Read more

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *