The Most Important News About:
XML Sitemaps
February, 5 2024
- Google Sitemaps Bug With Hyphenated File Names Google might be having some weird bug with XML sitemap files that have hyphens within the final [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
December, 5 2023
- Complaints With Google Invalid Sitemap URL Detected Error Over the past few days or so there has been a spike in complaints around Google Search Console [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
September, 21 2023
- Bing explains the new Sitemap Index Coverage report After quietly rolling out the new sitemap in Webmaster Tools, Bing explains how it works. - Search Engine Land
August, 16 2023
- XML sitemaps and SEO: What you need to know You can’t trust search engine bots to find all your URLs. Give them a guide with your XML [...] - Search Engine Land
July, 31 2023
- Google Drops Google News Sitemap Validation & Errors Help Documents Google has removed a couple of the Google News sitemaps help documentation. I should note, it [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
June, 27 2023
- Google To Drop Support For Sitemaps Ping Endpoints In 6-Months Google announced it would end support for Sitemaps ping endpoints in six months. Google said this [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
June, 26 2023
- Google to deprecate Sitemaps ping endpoint later this year Instead, Google is recommending an accurate lastmod date in your Sitemap file. - Search Engine Land
- Sitemaps ping endpoint is going away The Sitemaps Protocol was introduced in 2005 to help search engines with the discovery of [...] - Google Webmaster Central
June, 9 2023
- Google Checks To See If XML Sitemaps Change Before Reprocessing Google's Gary Illyes confirmed that Google does indeed check to see if an XML sitemap has a change [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
March, 24 2023
- When and how to use HTML sitemaps for SEO and UX Learn instances where using visual, HTML sitemaps make sense than simply relying on your website's [...] - Search Engine Land
February, 13 2023
- Google Reorganizes Sitemaps Documentation I believe Google changed the sitemaps-related search developer documentation last week. I am not [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
February, 2 2023
- Microsoft Bing: lastmod Tag In XML Sitemap File Is Critical Microsoft Bing posted a new blog post saying "for XML sitemaps, one of the most critical tags [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
- Google Search Console Video Indexing Report Gains Impressions & Sitemap Filters Google has updated the video indexing report within Google Search Console to add impression data [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
February, 1 2023
- Google Search Console Video indexing report gains video impressions overlay and sitemap filter Google has upgraded the video indexing report to help your videos perform better in search. - Search Engine Land
- Microsoft Bing to rely more on lastmod date in XML sitemap files for crawling Microsoft also released some interesting stats on lastmod dates in XML sitemap files. - Search Engine Land
January, 31 2023
- Google SEO Tips For News Articles: Lastmod Tag, Separate Sitemaps via @sejournal, @MattGSouthern Maximize the visibility of news articles with tips from Google's John Mueller and Gary Illyes on [...] - Search Engine Journal
January, 24 2023
- Google: Include Your Canonical URLs In Your Sitemap File Google's Gary Illyes said on LinkedIn this morning that you should "include the URLs that you [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
December, 21 2022
- Google PSA: Sitemaps Are Hints, Not Orders Gary Illyes from Google said on LinkedIn the other day that sitemaps are hints, not orders. Meaning [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
December, 9 2022
- Google's John Mueller Says HTML Sitemaps Should Never Be Needed John Mueller of Google has always downplayed the importance of HTML sitemaps over the years, he is [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
November, 9 2022
- Google: Child Elements Don't Count Towards Sitemap URL Limit Google has updated the sitemap section of the localized pages search help documentation to say that [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
November, 3 2022
- Google: Having Duplicate Content URLs In Sitemap File Won't Likely Cause Ranking Issues Google's John Mueller confirmed on Twitter that having a Sitemap file that lists pages that are [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
October, 14 2022
- Google: Pinging Sitemaps Help Get New Content Indexed More Quickly Google's John Mueller said that pinging Google that your sitemap file has been updated can help [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
August, 12 2022
- Google: Sitemap 50,000 Limit Based On Location URLs, Not Alternative URLs We know that each XML sitemap file can contain a maximum of 50,000 URLs but what is counted as the [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
June, 2 2022
- Google Sitemap Submission Date A Day Head - How Futuristic Yesterday an SEO named Nilesh Dhobi submitted an XML sitemap through Google Search Console. It was [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
May, 20 2022
- Search News Buzz Video Recap: Google Algorithm Update, Spammers Kill Bing Sitemap Submission, FID to INP, New Google Ad Label & RIP Bill Slawski There was another unconfirmed update on May 16th... - Search Engine Roundtable
May, 13 2022
- Spring cleaning: Removed Bing anonymous sitemap submission Inform Bing about webpages that are available for crawling via Sitemaps and IndexNow and [...] - Bing Webmaster
- Microsoft Bing drops anonymous sitemap submission due to spam issues You can now only submit sitemaps to Bing using robots.txt or Bing Webmaster Tools. - Search Engine Land
May, 6 2022
- Google Deprecates Some Image and Video Sitemap Extensions via @sejournal, @martinibuster Google announced that it is deprecating several image and video sitemap tags and attributes - Search Engine Journal
- Spring cleaning: some sitemap extension tags are going away We're deprecating a handful of sitemap extension tags and attributes. - Google Webmaster Central
- Google removing support for some video and image sitemap extension tags These sitemap extension tags are being deprecated on August 6, 2022. - Search Engine Land
March, 30 2022
- Google: Keep Old Redirected URLs In Sitemaps Files Temporarily Google's John Mueller said again on Twitter that you should only keep old URLs that have been [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
March, 23 2022
- Rank Math WordPress Plugin Duplicate Sitemap Bug via @sejournal, @martinibuster WordPress SEO plugin Rank Math bug generates duplicate sitemaps - Search Engine Journal
March, 21 2022
- Yoast WordPress SEO Bug Creates Duplicate Sitemaps via @sejournal, @martinibuster Yoast confirmed a bug that causes WordPress to generate duplicate sitemaps and is said to be [...] - Search Engine Journal
November, 18 2021
- Google: Leaving Old XML Sitemaps Up After URL Migration Will Have Minimal Effect Google's John Mueller was asked if it is helps after doing a big URL migration to keep the old XML [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
October, 29 2021
- Google: An Often Updated Sitemap Might Be A Good Idea Google's John Mueller told one webmaster that for his specific example, it might be a good idea for [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
October, 21 2021
- Bing Checks XML Sitemap File Daily Fabrice Canel from Microsoft said that Microsoft tries to check your site's XML Sitemap file one [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
September, 17 2021
- Yes, The Google Sitemap Ping Tool Still Works Google's John Mueller was asked on Twitter if the sitemap ping tool still works or not. John said [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
August, 4 2021
- Google: Try To Use One Sitemap File For Google News Google's John Mueller recommended that when it comes to your Google News sitemap file, try to use [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
June, 9 2021
- If You Don't Need A Sitemap File Google Says You Can Delete It Google said that if you don't need an XML sitemap file anymore, all you need to do is delete the [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
June, 1 2021
- Google: Deleting a Sitemap Won’t Stop Us Crawling Your Site via @sejournal, @MattGSouthern Google's John Mueller advises site owners that deleting a sitemap won't prevent URLs from being [...] - Search Engine Journal
March, 8 2021
- If Google Can't Fetch/Read Your Sitemap File? Try A New File URL. Google's John Mueller was asked about an error with Sitemaps files. The question was around Google [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
March, 5 2021
- Google Sites Sitemap Documentation Removed Official developer pages updated to reflect that Google Sites no longer creates sitemaps - Search Engine Journal
March, 2 2021
- Google Sites Stopped Generating XML Sitemap Files Google Sites over a decade, almost 15 years, has automatically generated XML sitemap files to be [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
December, 1 2020
- Google Combines Hreflang Signals from HTML & Sitemaps Google’s John Mueller discusses how hreflang signals are handled when directives appear in a [...] - Search Engine Journal
- Google: We Do Not Support Nested XML Sitemap Index Files Ryan Siddle, an SEO, asked John Mueller of Google if Google supports nested XML sitemap index [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
November, 10 2020
- Google: XML Sitemaps Are A Minimal Baseline For Any Serious Website Google's John Mueller said on Twitter that having an XML Sitemap file is "a minimal baseline [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
October, 1 2020
- Submitting URLs Does Not Lead To Google Reprocessing Your Sitemaps John Mueller of Google said on Twitter that if you use the submit URL within Google Search Console [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
September, 8 2020
- Google image:loc URLs Are Not Counted Towards 50k XML Sitemap Limit The same question was asked both on Twitter and on Reddit, asking do URLs in the image:loc tag also [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
August, 28 2020
- Google On Changing Last Modified Date In XML Sitemaps Too Often If you read the Google docs on XML Sitemaps and look at the lastmod field, Google says "Google [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
August, 17 2020
- Google: XML Sitemap Do Not Help With User Experience Pascal Birchler, a Developer Programs Engineer at Google and works closely on WordPress related [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
July, 24 2020
- WordPress 5.5 With Google Sitemaps Integration In Its Core For over a year, Google said it is working with the WordPress team to build in to the core of [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
July, 16 2020
- Google: Remove A Lot Of Pages From Your Site, Remove The URLs From Your Sitemap John Mueller of Google said it is a good idea to remove the URLs of pages you remove from your web [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
May, 24 2020
- Google’s John Mueller: Don’t Create a Sitemap Manually Google’s John Mueller recently advised an SEO not to manually create a sitemap for a large [...] - Search Engine Journal
May, 14 2020
- WordPress Google Sitemaps Integration Getting Closer Last June we reported that Google was looking to build directly into WordPress the automatic [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
March, 25 2020
- Pro Tip: 3 important XML sitemap checks to improve your SEO Evaluate what important URLs are missing, what needs to be removed and asses how Google indexes [...] - Search Engine Land
March, 5 2020
- Google: Only Worry About Sitemaps if Your Site Meets This Criteria Google’s Daniel Waisberg stated that sites don’t necessarily need sitemaps unless they [...] - Search Engine Journal
February, 7 2020
- Bing Webmaster Tools Sitemap Diagnosis Tool Coming Soon Nagu Rangan, a Product Management at Microsoft working on Bing, said on stage at PubCon that the [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
December, 31 2019
- Google: XML Sitemaps Are Mixed Up & Used As An Energy Drink Google's John Mueller said on Reddit that Google uses XML Sitemaps like an energy drink. John said [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
December, 16 2019
- John Mueller: Googlebot Receives Sitemaps “In the Form of an Energy Drink” Google’s John Mueller illustrated how Googlebot processes sitemap files by using a unique [...] - Search Engine Journal
November, 8 2019
- Google: It Is A Bad Sign If Your Robots.txt Or Sitemap File Is Ranking For Normal Queries We had a slew of tweets triggered by Gary Illyes of Google and then followed up by John Mueller of [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
October, 30 2019
- Google: Don't Crawl Your Site To Build A Sitemap File I never understood why people would use a crawler to build their XML sitemap file. I guess if you [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
October, 28 2019
- Google’s John Mueller Says There is No Ideal Size for Sitemaps via @MattGSouthern Google’s John Mueller recently stated there is no ideal sitemap size when it comes to [...] - Search Engine Journal
October, 2 2019
- Google: HTML Sitemaps Not Worthwhile For SEO Purposes Google's John Mueller posted on Reddit that he agrees, that HTML sitemaps are not worthwhile for [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
June, 12 2019
- Google Proposes Building XML Sitemaps Into WordPress Core Google's Pascal Birchler, who has been with Google since this past January, but worked at WordPress [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
- Yoast, Google devs propose XML Sitemaps for WordPress Core The proposal also includes an API for further customization. - Search Engine Land
June, 11 2019
- Google Search Console API Doesn't Return Sitemaps Indexed Counts As part of Google deprecating the old Google Search Console APIs, Google won't be supporting [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
April, 25 2019
- Google: Sitemap Dates vs Web Page Dates John Mueller from Google explained on Twitter the difference between the timestamp date in an XML [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
March, 20 2019
- Google Search Console adds new actions to sitemap report Google is proving that it is continuing to port old features from the old Search Console to the new [...] - Search Engine Land
February, 8 2019
- Managing sitemap XML with Google Search Console What to look for in Search Console indexing reports, plus learn why and how to create a dynamic [...] - Search Engine Land
January, 8 2019
- Need to expedite page removal in Google’s search index? Try a temporary sitemap file Do you need to remove a lot content from Google quickly? Here is how to do it if you own the site. - Search Engine Land
October, 22 2018
- Old Google Search Console Sitemap Bug With Mobile-First Indexing Google's John Mueller said in a Google Webmaster Help thread that there is a bug with the Sitemaps [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
August, 27 2018
- Google: Avoid Including Redirected URLs in Sitemaps Google is reminding site owners that they shouldn’t add URLs that are being redirected in the [...] - The SEM Post
July, 5 2018
- New Google Index Report Doesn't Show Blocked URLs From Sitemaps Alan Bleiweiss shared a scree shot of how the Google Sitemaps report in Google Search Console shows [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
June, 12 2018
- Hreflang Attributes In Sitemaps & HTML Code Treated Equally By Google Google's John Mueller said on Twitter that they treat hreflang found in your XML Sitemaps file and [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
April, 5 2018
- Google’s John Mueller Answers: How to Add Sitemaps for More Than 50,000 URLs In Google’s latest Q&A video, John Mueller explains how webmasters can submit a sitemap [...] - Search Engine Journal
- Google SEO Snippets Video: Multiple Sitemap Files Here is another SEO Snippets video, this one on the basic topic of submitting more than 50,000 URLs [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
March, 27 2018
- Hijacking Google search results for fun, not profit: UK SEO uncovers XML sitemap exploit in Google Search Console SEO wins bug bounty from Vulnerability Reward Program, Google search team confirms the exploit no [...] - Search Engine Land
February, 26 2018
- Google Not Indexing URLs In Your Sitemap? New Sitemaps Won't Help If you have issues with Google indexing specific URLs on your site, Google says putting those URLs [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
February, 19 2018
- Canonicals: Sitemap Canonicals Weaker Signal Than Rel=Canonical Using rel=canonicals on webpages has been the default standard for referencing canonicals. [...] - The SEM Post
February, 5 2018
- Google: Don't Dynamically Change Sitemap File Names Daily Google's John Mueller answered a question I never heard before around dynamically generated sitemap [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
October, 5 2017
- Google: No Limit On Hreflang Attributes; Consider Using Sitemaps Google's John Mueller said on Twitter that technically there is no limit to the number of hreflang [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
- Use Sitemaps for Sites With Many Hreflang Annotations If you have a large international site that has many hreflang annotations on each page, you might [...] - The SEM Post
September, 14 2017
- Google: Does Your XML Sitemaps Need To Load Fast? Many webmasters and SEOs are obsessed with site speed, not just for their users satisfaction but [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
June, 12 2017
- Google: Most CMSs Have XML Sitemap Implementations & 3rd Party Tools Unnecessary In the early days of when Google first introduced XML Sitemaps, Google also a collection of 3rd [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
April, 3 2017
- Google" Sitemap Priority Field Is "A Bag Of Noise" Google has always downplayed the importance of priority and chance frequency in the XML sitemap [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
January, 12 2017
- Google: Dirty Sitemaps URLs Don't Hurt Your Sitemap File Back in 2011, Duane Forrestor, when he was at Bing was interviewed about Bing Sitemaps and [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
December, 13 2016
- Google: Sitemaps Should Contain URLs Of Pages You Want Indexed, Not Variations Google's John Mueller said in a Google Webmaster Help thread that you should only include the URLs [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
December, 1 2016
- Google and Bing Increase Sitemap File Size Limit to 50 MB Google and Bing are increasing the limit of sitemap file sizes from the standard 10 MB to 50 MB. - Search Engine Journal
November, 30 2016
- Increasing the size limit of Sitemaps file to address evolving webmaster needs For years, the sitemaps protocol defined at www.sitemaps.org stated that each sitemap file (or [...] - Bing Webmaster
- Google & Bing increase the file size limit of Sitemaps files While the 50,000 URL limit has not changed, your Sitemaps file size can now be up to 50MB. - Search Engine Land
- Google & Bing Increase Size of Sitemap Files to 50MB Bing has announced a change to the sitemap file size limit, increasing it from 10MB to 50MB. [...] - The SEM Post
- Google & Bing Increase File Size Limit Of Sitemap File By 400% Both Google and Bing announced that they have increased the file size limit of your sitemap files [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
October, 18 2016
- Google: AMP Pages Don't Need Sitemap XML Files John Mueller of Google said on Twitter that you do not need to submit a separate XML sitemap file [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
August, 12 2016
- Google: Sitemaps Don't Help With Rich Snippets In the Google+ hangout this morning a typical question around why isn't Google showing rich [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
July, 5 2016
- Google: Changing Sitemap URL Location Has No Impact On Ranking Or Crawling Google's John Mueller said in a Google Hangout on Google+ last Friday that changing the URL or [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
May, 13 2016
- Bug? Google Sitemap index counts drop across Search Console reports Many publishers and webmasters are seeing huge drops in the reported index count in the Google [...] - Search Engine Land
- Google Search Console Sitemaps Index Count Drops For All There are tons of concerns and complaints on Twitter and on Google Webmaster Help that the index [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
February, 29 2016
- Google: HTML Sitemaps Can Help But Are They Necessary? Personally, I am a fan of having HTML Sitemaps - mostly for 404 like pages, so users who stumble on [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
December, 30 2015
- Google: You Can Cloaking Your XML Sitemap Files Google's John Mueller in a long Google Hangout yesterday said that it is not problematic to cloak [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
December, 15 2015
- Google: No Technical Advantage To Splitting Up Sitemaps But Useful For Debugging John Mueller of Google answered a question on why you may want to split up your XML Sitemap files [...] - Search Engine Roundtable
December, 11 2015
- Advantages to Using Multiple Sitemaps in Google Search Console Depending on the size of your site, you have probably been presented with whether you should split [...] - The SEM Post
August, 24 2015
- Google News Sitemap Index Count Bug Will Take A Long Time To Fix As we've reported twice before, the Google News sitemap index count is inaccurate and has been for [...] - Search Engine Roundtable