Download sitemap.xml file
SEO Audits are a core service I provide, including both comprehensive audits and laser-focused audits tied to algorithm updates. There are times during those audits that I come across strange pages that are indexed, or I see crawl errors for pages not readily apparent on the site itself. A dirty sitemap is an xml sitemap that contains s, s, s, etc. Note, those are header response codes. A code is ok, while the others signal various errors or redirects.
Instead, you want your xml sitemaps to contain canonical urls on your site, and urls that resolve with a code. And Google feels the same way.
Therefore, you should avoid dirty sitemaps so the engines can build trust in that sitemap versus having the engines encounter s, s, s, etc. Indexed to Submitted Ratio One metric that can help you understand if your xml sitemaps are problematic or dirty is the indexed to submitted ratio in Google Webmaster Tools.
That ratio should be close r to If you see a low indexed to submitted ratio, then that could flag an issue with the urls you are submitting in your sitemap. It should also be available in the sitemaps report in Search Console or visible in your robots. You can visit the sitemap URL in your browser.
Once the crawl is complete, you can export the data to CSV or sort by Status Code to highlight any potential issues. Richard Baxter 20th December You can create sitemaps in a simple text editor such as XML or use a tool to get you started. We provide a free online sitemap generator, a word press plugin or a Windows dowload. The links below provide a couple of example sitemap produced using our online sitemap generator for this website. It's quick and easy to generate a sitemap for your website using our free online sitemap generator or you can give one of our other tools a try.
Windows 10 is recommended. G-Mapper may work on older systems such as Windows 7 but is unsupported or tested. Download Download Sitemap Generator. Please help support us We provide our services for free and operate on the goodwill of our community, but it has become increasingly difficult maintain and fund.