A sitemap is an html page of a site or a special xml file, which displays links to all important pages of the site. To understand what a site map is, just imagine a book’s table of contents and it will immediately become clear why do you need a site map. A site map helps a visitor, be it a person or a search robot, quickly find any page on the site, making a minimum number of transitions. On simple, small sites, all pages can be accessed within 1-2 clicks from the main page, but what if the site is large and its structure is complex? Such a site will not only be inconvenient for visitors, but also not obvious to search engines.
What types of sitemaps are there?
Search engines index the site gradually, level by level, starting from the main page. If the site has many levels of nesting of pages, then it will take many months for all the pages of the site to be indexed. So it is necessary create a sitemap, on which there will be all links to all pages of the site at once, so that the robot does not waste time navigating through nesting levels, right? Yes and no. The answer depends on why the map is being made and what it will be like. Let's take a look what are the types of sitemaps?.
Sitemap HTML Sitemap
Sitemaps are divided into 2 main types or formats: sitemap html and a sitemap xml file. HTML sitemap is a site page, which lists the links. Usually these are links to the most important sections and pages of the site. HTML sitemap is more designed for people rather than robots and helps you quickly navigate the main sections of the site. For a sitemap in the form of an HTML page, there are serious restrictions on the number of links on one page. If there are too many links on a page, not all links may be indexed, or the site map page may even be excluded from searches for having an excessive number of links, even .
In order for the html sitemap to be correctly indexed and adequately perceived by visitors, you should not place more than 100 links on the page. This is more than enough to place on the page all the sections and subsections that do not fit into the main menu.
Usually, site map in HTML format has a tree structure, where expanded sections and subsections are indicated. Unnecessarily bulky HTML site maps are often designed with graphic elements, CSS styles and supplemented with Java script. However, an html sitemap is of little value to search engines.
An HTML sitemap is not a full-fledged sitemap. What to do if the site has hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of pages? To do this, you need to place links to all pages in the sitemap in xml format.
XML Sitemap
An XML sitemap is a file in xml format, like sitemap.xml, which is usually located at the root of the site. A sitemap in xml format has many advantages over an html sitemap. Sitemap xml is a special sitemap format, which is determined by all popular search engines, such as Google and Yandex. You can specify up to 50,000 links in xml sitemap. Moreover, in the sitemap xml you can specify the relative priority and frequency of page updates.
It is worth saying that the contents of the site map are only recommendations for the search robot. For example, if you set an annual update frequency for a website page, search robots will still visit more often. And if you set the page refresh rate to be hourly, this does not mean that robots will index the page every hour.
An xml sitemap has a specific syntax, let's look at the structure of an xml sitemap in more detail.
Example sitemap file sitemap.xml
The correct sitemap.xml must be UTF8 encoded. The contents of the sitemap.xml file look like this:
Where the following required tags are used:
— parent tag, it contains all URLs; — тег, в котором указываются сведения о конкретном url-адресе; https://hsectf.ru/en/ — в данном теге указывается непосредственно url.
— этот тег заключает в себе дату последнего изменения страницы; — тег используется, чтобы указать насколько часто изменяется страница: always, hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, yearly, never; — указывает приоритет определенной страницы, относительно других страниц сайта от 0,1 – низкий приоритет, до 1 – высокий приоритет.
Так же, в файле карты сайта в формате xml должно содержаться указание на пространство имен языка XML:
Xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9"
Если файл карты сайта включает более 50 тысяч ссылок или размер sitemap.xml превышает 10 мб, рекомендуется разделить карту сайта на несколько файлов. В таком случае, в карте сайта необходимо указать несколько ссылок на разные файлы карт.
Здесь используются уже знакомые нам теги
— родительский тег, в который заключаются адреса всех карт сайта; — тег, в котором заключается параметры для каждой карты сайта.
Пример файла карты сайта sitemap.txt
Еще одним способом оформления карты сайт в виде файла может быть карта сайта в формате txt:
1. http://mysite.ru/ 2. http://mysite.ru/page/ 3. http://mysite.ru/page1/
Все просто. В файле sitemap.txt построчно перечисляются все необходимые ссылки. Карта сайта в формате txt — это «вариант для ленивых». Здесь работает аналогичное sitemap xml ограничение в 50.000 ссылок. Однако, TXT карта сайта лишена возможностей указания даты последнего изменения и приоритета страницы.
Как создать карту сайта
Создание карты сайта важный процесс, в котором необходимо четко указать, какие страницы сайта нужно индексировать и как лучше их индексировать. В зависимости от того о каком типе карты сайта идет речь, используются различные способы создания карты сайта . Как создать html карту сайта обсуждать отдельно смысла нет. Рассмотрим как сделать карту карта в формате xml файла. Существует несколько основных способов создания карты сайта, но все их объединяет то, где находится карта сайта и как файл sitemap определяется поисковыми системами.
Как уже было написано выше — файл карты сайта размещается в корне сайта . Поисковые системы способны самостоятельно обнаружить файл карты сайта. Но существует несколько способов указания прямой ссылки на файл(ы) карты сайта(ов) для более скорого обнаружения поисковыми системами. Самый простой способ указать место расположения файла карты сайта — это непосредственное указание ссылки или нескольких ссылок на файлы карт сайта в инструментах для вебмастеров от Yandex и Google. Там же можно проверить карту сайта , провести анализ карты сайта на корректность , соответствие того, какие страницы из карты сайта найдены поисковой системой и сколько из них находится в индексации.
Второй способ указать поисковым системам на расположение файла карты сайта — это .
Sitemap: http://mysite.ru/sitemap.xml
В robots.txt можно указать несколько файлов sitemap, после чего, он автоматически будут добавлены в инструменты для вебмастеров. Как найти карту сайта мы рассмотрели, теперь перейдем к тому, как создать карту сайта.
Основные способы создания карты сайта
- Генерация карты сайта силами системы управления сайта, если CMS имеет подобную встроенную возможность.
- Скачать карту сайта со стороннего онлайн сервиса. Существует множество online генераторов карт сайта с различным возможностями и ограничениями. Напрмер xml-sitemaps.com обладает возможностью настройки параметров карты сайта, но имеет ограничение по количеству ссылок в файле sitemap.xml в 500 штук.
- Скачать программу-генератор карты сайта . Подобные программы генераторы обычно платные, но при их помощи можно можно регулярно генерить sitemap xml для одного или нескольких сайтов. Вот пара примеров подобных программ-генераторов: SiteMap XML Dynamic SiteMap Generator, WonderWebWare SiteMap Generatior.
- Автоматическое создание sitemap карты сайта в Joomla (Джумла), WordPress (Вордпресс), Bitrix (Битрикс).
- Создание карты сайта вручную .
Карта сайта — один из важнейших инструментов . Не важно, как будет создана карта сайта. Важно — какие ссылки будут перечислены в карте сайта и как часто она будет обновляться. Иногда, в карту сайта выгружается все подряд и даже те ссылки, которые запрещены в robots.txt или . А обновление карты сайта происходит раз в месяц или реже. Подобное отношение к карте сайта может не просто сделать ее бесполезной, но того хуже — запутать поискового робота, что негативно отразится на индексации и позициях сайта в поиске.
Создайте карту сайта для своего ресурса. Но будте внимательны и хорошо подумайте, что выгружать в sitemap, а что нет.
Что такое карта сайта
Содержимое любого веб-ресурса рано или поздно будет проиндексировано поисковыми системами. А как сделать так, чтобы этот процесс происходил побыстрее?
Один из наиболее эффективных способов – использование так называемой карты сайта (Sitemap ).
Карта сайта (Sitemap ) – это xml -файл с информацией для поисковых систем о страницах веб-ресурса, которые подлежат индексации. Sitemap помогает поисковикам определить местонахождение объектов веб-ресурса, время их последнего обновления, частоту обновления, приоритетность.
Формат протокола Sitemap состоит из XML -тегов.
В файле необходимо использовать кодировку UTF-8 .
Атрибуты XML -тегов Sitemap
Пример XML -файла Sitemap
(необязательные теги выделены ):
If your site contains many web pages, you can omit optional attributes (this will significantly reduce file sizes Sitemap):
Using Index Files Sitemap
File Sitemap must contain no more than 50,000 URL, and its size should not exceed 10 MB.
If necessary file Sitemap can be compressed using an archiver gzip to reduce bandwidth requirements.
If you need to transfer more than 50,000 URL, you should create several files Sitemap. You will need to list each of these files in the index file. Sitemap. In the index file Sitemap a maximum of 50,000 files can be listed Sitemap. The size of this file should not exceed 10 MB.
How to create a sitemap
To create a sitemap, you can use so-called generators Sitemap, or you can do everything yourself:
– open Notebook;
– following the rules of protocol Sitemap, fill out the file Sitemap ;
– enter the file name in the appropriate text field (for example, sitemap.xml);
– in the drop-down list File type select All files (*.*);
– in the drop-down list Encoding select UTF-8, press Save;
– upload Sitemap to the root directory of your site.
Notifications for search engine scanners about the presence and location of a file Sitemap
After the file Sitemap created and hosted on a web server, its location must be reported to search engines that support this protocol. This can be done in the following ways:
Uploading a Sitemap Using the Search Engine Web Interface
To send a file Sitemap directly to the search engine, which provides the ability to obtain information about the status and processing errors, refer to the search engine help system.
For example, transfer
Greetings, dear friends, on the pages of the site! Today I will show how to add Sitemap.xml to Google and Yandex. Let me remind you that a Sitemap file is a site map in XML format for search engines, which is not visible to blog visitors. It contains a list of site pages that should be indexed by search robots, information about their importance and update frequency. Creating such a sitemap helps improve on-page SEO optimization of the site.
How to add a sitemap Sitemap.xml in the Yandex and Google webmaster panels
To add a Sitemap file to Google and Yandex, you must first create it. Next, we add the site to the Yandex and Google webmaster panels and confirm the rights to the site. If you haven’t done this yet, I wrote earlier, and.
Now let's move on to adding the site map to search engines. There are two ways to notify search engines about the presence of a Sitemap:
- Add a Sitemap directive to the robots.txt file. Read more about this in the article ““.
- Add Sitemap files to search engines in Yandex.Webmaster and Google Webmaster Tools.
Even if you have already specified the paths to the sitemap in robots.txt, performing the second method will not be superfluous.
We go to the Yandex.Webmaster panel using the link http://webmaster.yandex.ua/, having previously logged in. In the list of added sites, select the one whose Sitemap file we want to add to Yandex. In the left menu “ general information"select the item" Setting up indexing” – “ Sitemap files “. On the page that opens, enter the full path to the site map in a special field and click the “Add” button.
Now the XML sitemap has been added to the Yandex search engine and the Sitemap file will be processed for about two weeks.
If everything is done correctly, then after a while you will see the following picture:
As you can see, I added two files to Yandex: Sitemap.xml and Sitemap.xml.gz. The second is a compressed XML file generated by the Google XML Sitemaps WordPress plugin. I think it is not necessary to add a compressed Sitemap file to Yandex, since when you click on any of the “More details” buttons, you can see exactly the same information.
I left both Sitemap files added, since the blog is indexed without problems, and I see no reason to change anything.
If you need to delete the sitemap, click on the cross next to the file name (see the previous figure).
How to Add a Sitemap to Google
Here we do everything the same way. Log in to Google and go to Webmaster Tools using the link https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/. Select the desired site from the list and select the item “ Site configuration” – “ Sitemap files “. Press the button “ Add/Verify Sitemap File“.
A pop-up window will appear where we enter the sitemap address and click “ Submit Sitemap“. Please note that the address http://site/ has already been automatically filled in and you only need to add the missing part.
As we see, add Sitemap.xml to Google and you can get information about it faster than in Yandex.
In the same way, if necessary, the Sitemap file is checked in Google. All you have to do is press the “ Check Sitemap” in the pop-up window.
If you encounter errors while adding XML files to Google, remove the files from the list (see image above) and try uploading them again.
Add Sitemap.xml to Yandex and Google you need it once. Now, when new articles appear on a blog, search engines will definitely not miss them during indexing, and the process itself will happen faster. The site map is automatically updated in the Yandex and Google webmaster panels. Therefore, there is no need to add a new Sitemap file every time.
As you can see, nothing complicated. However, many people simply forget to add the XML sitemap to search engines. Remind them by sending links to this article on social networks (buttons below).
To create a sitemap you must register
There are two types of site maps: sitemap. xml and sitemap. html.
Xml site map (sitemap.xml)
Xml sitemap is created for search robots. Using an xml map, you can indicate how often a particular page should be indexed, how often it is updated, and how important it is within your site. Using a site map, all links that are on the site are recorded.
In other words, the site structure becomes transparent to search robots. For “live” users the xml map is useless.
If you only need an xml map, then you can easily generate it automatically using one of many online resources. On most of them, creating a site map of up to 100 pages is free. The generation process takes a certain time: the more pages the site for which you are generating a sitemap has, the longer this process will take. This can take anywhere from a few minutes (for small sites) to an hour or more (for sites with hundreds of pages and numerous cross-links).
Necessary remember that for any changes that affect the site structure or the priority of pages, it is necessary to re-generate the sitemap.
In order for the search robot to find your sitemap.xml, you must specify the path to it in the robots.txt file.
Html site map (sitemap.html)
An Html sitemap is created for visitors to your site, it is analogous to a table of contents in a book. It often happens that with a complex or not very transparent structure, the visitor gets lost in navigating the site and does not reach the pages (he simply does not find them) that he would need and leaves the site dissatisfied. At the same time, site conversion decreases.
If there is an html map and it is made with high quality, the sections are titled correctly and succinctly, then any section, any page of the site on the desired topic will be easily found by a visitor to your site.
Create a sitemap online on our website
Using the proposed module you can simultaneously create sitemap.xml and sitemap.html.
In this case, you create only an html sitemap, and an xml sitemap is created automatically.
Changes that are made to the site structure after creating a sitemap do not require a new generation of sitemap.xml; the xml map is adjusted automatically after adjusting the html map. Thus, your site will always have a correct map for search engines (sitemap.xml) and a correct table of contents (sitemap.html).
Comparison of automatic and semi-automatic sitemap generation
- Customizable appearance and css styles.
- Customizable tree system.
- Full customization for search engines.
- All entered data is saved.
- Correcting the finished sitemap will take no more than a minute.
- Intuitive interface.
- Automatic check of page accessibility (eliminates errors and duplicates).
- The program reads the title of the page independently.
- The HTML map automatically adds a page title to each link.
- To add to the site, just copy the code or download the file.
- Simultaneous creation of html and xml sitemap.
A site map can be compared to a table of contents in a book, containing a list of all the most important sections. On a website, this is a directory that contains links to the main sections and pages of the web resource. In general, the sitemap contains the following information:
- a list of site page URLs in hierarchical order;
- format of content appearing on the site: text, video, pictures;
- information about videos and images necessary for robots to enter them into the database and generate search results;
- page priority information;
- data on the latest changes to documents and the regularity of their updates;
- information about other versions of the web page.
Sitemap helps visitors and especially search engine robots quickly determine the location of all the most necessary pages for indexing, as well as their importance in relation to other documents, frequency and time of last change, while making as few “extra” transitions as possible. A sitemap helps the system index a resource more efficiently.
Yes, on small sites you can go to any document in just a couple of clicks, but large ones contain several thousand pages and their structure is much more complex. Without a Sitemap on such resources it will be difficult for both visitors and search bots.
Based on the above, we can distinguish three main situations in which problems arise with resource indexing and a sitemap is needed:
- a huge number of pages;
- complex resource structure;
- lack of external or internal backlinks to pages important for indexing.
Types of cards
Any search engine enters site pages into the index gradually, starting from the main page and ending with deeply nested documents; it depends on what kind of site it has.
TXT
Another method for creating a sitemap is a Sitemap file in txt (text format). This contains a list of all the links that are important for indexing. In general, this option is relevant for webmasters who do not want to bother too much.
Yes, a TXT map can also accommodate 50 thousand links, but it does not have the ability to indicate the date of last modification and the relative priority of documents.
Example
1. http://site.com/; 2. http://site.com/page1/; 3. http://site.com/page2.Yandex and Google requirements for maps
I have identified 6 general requirements that the two most popular search engines put forward for the Sitemap file:
- You must use UTF-8 encoding.
- The limit on the number of URLs is up to 50 thousand links.
- If the file size is more than 10 MB, divide it into several maps and write them all in the Sitemap index file.
- When accessing the sitemap, the server must send a 200 OK response.
- Enter only canonical URLs of documents: there should not be any session identifiers or GET parameters.
- Links in the file should lead to the same domain where the sitemap itself is located. It would seem that this is an elementary requirement. But in reality, many webmasters who have several web resources, when transferring a template with a Sitemap file, forgot to change the existing links to current ones.
Search engines also have their own unique requirements.
Yandex:
- the maximum allowed size is 10 MB;
- URLs with Cyrillic characters are allowed.
- the maximum allowed file size is 50 MB;
- works only with Latin characters and numbers (Cyrillic domains can be converted to Latin using Punycode).
Important! To reduce bandwidth requirements, the gzip archiver is used. 10 and 50 MB are the sizes of Sitemap files before compression of the archivers, and not after.
Does a site map affect promotion?
I note that without a sitemap, search engines will not lower your resource in the search results. Search engines are not stupid and even if you don’t have a Sitemap on your site, they still have one.
Now search engines, even without a sitemap, scan pages and include them in the results quite well. And in theory, they should do this on their own, without any help from webmasters.
But problems often arise when robots malfunction and cannot scan all pages. This often happens due to:
- deep nesting of some sections, to access which you need to follow many links;
- dynamic URLs.
Therefore, it is in the interests of webmasters to help search engines.
Having a site map allows you to avoid these situations. Sitemap to a certain extent has a positive effect on the SEO promotion of a web resource, because it makes the process of crawling and including pages in search faster and easier for robots.
With this file, your resource also reduces the risk of turning from the original source into a copy-paste due to the fact that the pages will get into the index before competitors manage to steal content from it and post it on their own.
Important! Add to the Sitemap the main pages that play a key role in site optimization so that they appear in the search results first. Do not include pages with service information, dynamic URLs, tags, or those prohibited for indexing in the file.
Is it possible without a Sitemap?
The answer is obvious - yes. Search engines perceive sitemap.xml only as a recommendation for robots. In practice, for web resources that do not have a sitemap, Yandex notes the presence of possible, but not critical or fatal, problems.
As was written above, search robots are capable of independently and efficiently indexing resources, but for large sites and those with dynamic URLs, it is better to create a Sitemap, besides, it will not take much time, and in the future it can save a lot of your nerves.
How to create a sitemap?
This process must be approached responsibly, because here you need to indicate the main pages that you want to see in search results.
HTML
A sitemap in HTML format is, first of all, navigation through sections of the site for users. If a web resource has only a few hundred pages, has a simple structure and a clear menu, it is not necessary to connect an HTML map.
But when the site is large and the structure is quite complex, it makes sense to create a page with a list of links to the main pages.
Consider the niche to which your resource belongs and, accordingly, its target audience. If your visitors are predominantly elderly, a site map will help them navigate the site, since the main menu is more difficult to understand.
There are many ways to create a Sitemap in HTML format using the . The best way to do this is through the Hierarchical HTML Sitemap plugin and similar ones. Download the plugin for yours, install it, and then activate the add-on to install the file. After that, you place the shortcode issued by the plugin on the page where you want to connect the sitemap.
The site map will be available at:
http://site.com/sitemap.html
For other engines there are such solutions:
- Drupal – Sitemap plugin.
- Joomla! – OSMap plugin.
Those who use OpenCart don't need to worry about creating an HTML sitemap because it appears there automatically.
XML
If you decide to create an XML sitemap, decide how you will do it:
- Generate a sitemap using the resource management engine, if it has the appropriate built-in functionality, using various plugins and modules.
- Download generator software. Most of these programs are paid, but thanks to them you can easily create an XML file for either one or several resources. Here are the most popular: WonderWebWare SiteMap Generator and SiteMap XML Dynamic SiteMap Generator.
- Download the Sitemap file online using the generator. The choice of special services today is very large, they all have different limitations and capabilities. For example, on the website xml-sitemaps.com you can configure an abundance of map parameters, but you can place a maximum of 500 links in it.
- Manual connection Sitemap.
Using an online generator
The advantage of this method is that it is not tied to any CMS. Online generators allow you to create a sitemap for web resources on any engine and even on static HTML sites.
The disadvantage of using generators is that free services are very limited in the number of pages and are more suitable, for example, for business card sites, where there are several pages and new ones will not appear.
If the resource is regularly updated with new articles, then free generators will not be suitable. They don't update the Sitemap, so new URLs won't appear there, causing the file to quickly become outdated.
Most popular generator:
I will give an example of how to create an XML map with XML-Sitemaps.
Go to the service website and indicate the address of your resource, click on the START button.
In a few minutes, a sitemap in XML format will be generated. Next, download the file to your computer’s hard drive.
Then you need to upload the Sitemap to the root folder of the site using an FTP client, for example, WinSCP. If you don't know where to look for the root directory, enter index.html in the search. Upload the file here.
Via software
Creating an XML sitemap using this method is not that difficult. Now I will show how to do this using the example of the PC program Majento:
- resource.
- In the top tab, go to the “Sites” section, then click “Generate Sitemap”.
- Save the file in .xml format.
- Everything is a map on your website.
Through plugins for CMS
This option is much more convenient than free online generators. Plugins for site management engines are more functional and allow you to change sitemap parameters. And one of the main advantages is the presence of add-ons for automatically updating the file immediately after new documents appear, as well as notifying search engines about them.
For WordPress sites, one of the best options is the Google XML Sitemaps module. Install and then activate the plugin. Next, go to settings.
In the main settings, enable alerts for Google, specify the sitemap address in the robots file and activate the Sitemap.xml compression function.
Go to Article Priority and turn off the automatic page prioritization feature. Then you will need to prioritize publications yourself. Take a look at the Sitemap Contents section. Include in your sitemap only the types of documents that you want to index.
Don't forget to check the box next to Include the last modification time. This way, the module will show robots in the sitemap the date the page was last updated, which will help them calculate the date for crawling the site again.
The Change Frequencies option allows you to set the frequency of re-indexing of certain types of documents. Often, search engines do not follow the changefreq tag written in the Sitemap file, because they independently determine the crawling budget of the resource and build on it.
However, the plugin provides the ability to further configure the scanning frequency, but this will also be a recommendation, not a command.
Excluded Items allows you to remove certain documents or categories from sitemap.xml.
The Priorities tab speaks for itself. The priority of pages is indicated here; the values for them are set from 0.1 to 1. Initially, each page has a value of 0.5. Give the highest priority to the most important pages for ranking.
Finally, be sure to save your changes to the settings. The plugin will continue to function in the background and there will no longer be a need to enter it - the site map will continue to remain relevant, since everything is updated automatically. Next, you just need to add the file to the Yandex and Google webmaster panels.
For images
The search giant also works with image sitemaps. Thanks to it, Google robots can obtain more data about images on the site. The syntax also helps the search engine quickly find and index images that it was unable to find during the process of scanning the resource.
You can create a syntax for images separately or add it to an already created Sitemap. The sitemap for images, like the standard one, contains optional and required XML tags.
Mandatory ones include:
, containing the address and other information regarding the image.
The optional tags are as follows:
For video
Google also supports XML sitemaps specifically for video. The advantages of this syntax are as follows:
- allows you to show search engines a detailed description of the video file;
- shows bots the type of content on the resource;
- a splash screen for a video can be displayed in the search results, which potentially increases clicks and transitions to the site;
- content can be found in Google Video.
The XML map for video includes the required tags:
The description and title of the video file must either be escaped or placed in a CDATA block. You can generate a video for sitemap.xml using the WP Video SEO plugin.
TXT
You need to create a text file in UTF-8 encoding. It contains only the URLs of the pages that should be indexed.
Where to place the site map?
The Sitemap file is best placed in the root folder of the web resource. And the link to the site map is located in . It should look something like this:
You can clearly see in our robots.txt example at the link
How to add to Yandex Webmaster
A sitemap provides the opportunity to inform the search engine about the current structure of the resource, so it can be added to the Yandex webmaster panel.
Here you can:
- Download site map.
- Notify about its update.
- Exclude file.
- Select a web resource from the list.
- Enter the URL of the file location in the appropriate field.
- Click "Add".
This will send your sitemap for processing. The search bot will download the file no later than 14 days later. The search engine processes all added files separately. When the files are downloaded, a status will be displayed next to each of them:
- OK. The file was created correctly and loaded into the database. The date of the last update will be shown next to it. Documents that robots have already indexed will appear in the search results no later than 2 weeks later.
- Redirect. The file address redirects to another URL. In this case, you need to remove the redirect and notify the system about the update.
- Error. The file was created incorrectly. Follow this link Error, where its reasons will be described. Correct everything that the search engine requires and then report the changes.
- Not indexed. The server sends an HTTP code that is different from 200 OK. Go to the Server Response Test tool and paste the full URL of the sitemap location to see if the search bot can access it. If the file is unavailable, contact the administrator of the server or resource where it is located.
Also make sure that in robots.txt you do not apply a Disallow directive to the file, which prevents it from being indexed.
Update
When making any changes to the sitemap, there is no need to delete it and then download it again, since bots often check the sitemap for updates and errors. It is recommended to just click on the manual update icon, which will allow bots to quickly bypass the file.
On a note. The number of manual update attempts is limited, so use it wisely.
- Go to Google Webmaster Panel.
- Find the “Crawling” section and go to “Sitemaps”.
- Click "Add/Check File".
- Enter the address where the site map is available.
- Click "Submit".
If you want to check the Sitemap for errors, next to the “Submit” button there is a “Test” - click to check. After checking, a window will appear indicating the presence or absence of errors.
In Google Help you can see a list of all possible errors and solutions to them.
Removal
If you have a new Search Console interface, write to search engine support.
But the best option is to switch to the old version at the bottom of the page. And then everything is the same as in Yandex.Webmaster: go to select a site from the list and then check the box next to Sitemap to delete the file.
Conclusion
Carefully consider which pages of your web resource have the highest priority over others, and indicate them in the Sitemap file. This is an effective tool, the proper use of which will help search engine robots crawl the site faster and obtain information about its structure.
