Sitemaps
A sitemap is a list of all of the live URLs which exist on a site and is used to inform search engine crawlers of the most important pages and therefore which ones should be crawled and indexed.
There are several things to consider when creating sitemaps, as well as understanding how search engines view them. We cover a range of these topics within our SEO Office Hours Notes below, along with best practice recommendations and Google’s advice on sitemaps.
For more on sitemaps and SEO, check out our article: How to Improve Website Crawlability with Sitemaps.
KML Sitemaps Not Supported by Google
KML sitemaps files are not supported by Google and haven’t been for some years.
Empty Sitemap Files Should Be Removed
Empty sitemap files with no URLs are not problematic for Google but John recommends removing them if they are not needed.
You Don’t Need to Submit Separate Mobile URLs in Sitemaps
URLs for separate mobile sites don’t need to be submitted in their own sitemap. If the rel alternate tags are set up correctly then Google will be able to find these pages through their connection to their desktop equivalents.
Google Have Removed Their Public URL Submission Feature
Google’s public URL submission tool has been removed but URLs can still be submitted through Search Console and sitemaps.
Image Sitemaps Associate Images With Pages But Don’t Provide Context For Images
Image sitemaps are useful for Google as they show what images are associated with what landing pages, but they don’t provide context about the images themselves like alt text and image titles do.
Block Videos From Search By Adding Video URL & Thumbnail to Robots.txt or Setting Expiration Date in Sitemap
You can signal to Google for a video not to be included in search by blocking the video file and thumbnail image in robots.txt or by specifying an expiration date using a video sitemap file.
A Sitemap is the Best Way for Google to Quickly Process Noindex at Scale
Make sure the pages you’ve added a noindex tag to are included in a sitemap file with the last modified date to ensure Google picks these up as quickly as possible. Make sure last modified dates are realistic and aren’t the same for every page as this looks artificial to Google.
You Only Need to Include Standalone AMP Pages in Sitemaps
As long as you have the link rel=amphtml you won’t need to include AMP in sitemaps unless they are standalone pages. Google can access the HTML of the main page to include in the AMP cache when changes are made to the content.
Google Will Crawl Sitemaps That Have Been Removed from GSC
It’s not enough to remove an old sitemap file from GSC to prevent it from being crawled, you need to remove it from the server to prevent Google from finding and crawling it. John recommends fixing the sitemap file if possible though.
Large Hreflang Sets Should be Included in Sitemap Files
If you have a large set of hreflang tags then John recommends putting these in your sitemap files as this makes them easier to maintain.