Sitemap.xml – How to Fix Common Issues
Posted by stevelamar - Oct 7, 2011
Sitemaps tell Google about pages on your site they might not otherwise discover. If the numbers of pages is not consistent with the number of pages on the site, there are several solutions to look at first:
1. Does the sitemap.xml (or a similar form) exist
2. If the sitemap.xml exists, has it been submitted to GWT
3. If it does not exist (or needs to be updated) there are a number of ways to generate a sitemap:
- If the site is on a CMS check to see if the CMS has an automated sitemap creation process and work with client to turn it on.
- If the site is under 500 URLs, this tool can be used to create the sitemap: http://www.xml-sitemaps.com/
- Starting URL: Always use www. in the URL when generating the sitemap
- Change Frequency: Set the change frequency to tell Google how often the content is updated
- Last Modification: Select Use Server’s Response
- Priority: Select “Automatically Calculated Priority”
S4. If the CMS cannot generate a sitemap or the site is over 500 URLs, a sitemap can be generated directly from the website database, but this would need to be handled by the client’s IT/dev resources