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Hello everyone, Alexander is with you, and today we will talk about Sitemap files.
Definition from Wikipedia:
Sitemaps are XML files that contain information for search engines (such as Google, Yandex, Bing and others) about the pages of a website that are subject to indexing. These files help search engines know the location of pages on a site, when they were last updated, how often they were updated, and how important they are relative to other pages. This allows search engines to index the site more efficiently.
From the definition it is clear that Sitemap is an important system file directly related to site indexing. However, opinions on its importance may vary. Some consider it an essential tool for SEO, while others say it has little impact. Personally, I am inclined to believe that his role is not so critical, but in certain situations he can be useful.
Often the Sitemap either does not exist or is empty. But is this a critical problem? Answer: no, not always.
We will talk about this later in the article.
It is worth noting that misunderstandings often arise due to insufficient understanding of the importance of Sitemap on the part of customers. The sitemap is generated automatically or using special services, and then can be edited if necessary. Writing it by hand is an infrequent practice and should not take up too much of your work's time. And even more so, you shouldn’t make too much money from it, because no one should spend more than 30 hours creating or configuring this file.
Unfortunately, sometimes for customizing a Sitemap or “detailed customization of system XML files” they can charge 50, or even more, thousand rubles.
Even if this is true, why is Sitemap so often mentioned among SEO specialists? The fact is that correct management of this file and its timely updating increases the likelihood of successful indexing of site pages.
A sitemap tells search robots about new pages or changes to existing pages. Having received such data, robots review the pages and add them to the index.
Sometimes it happens that a page that seems to be perfectly optimized, but is not in the search index. It may just be a matter of time, but if you have the opportunity to speed up the process, it's worth taking advantage of it.
Need to. On large projects, Sitemap updates occur automatically. For example, once a day the system scans the site, adds new pages, removes deleted ones, and updates data about the latest changes. This is the best way.
For small sites, a simple synchronized update via the admin panel or manual control is sufficient. In this case, the sitemap will be updated when new pages are added or old ones are changed.
Thus, the Sitemap becomes a kind of “clean sheet” of the site, since it indicates the pages that need to be indexed.
In Google Search Console you can check the status of your Sitemap. To do this, you need to go to the “Index” - “Sitemap Files” section and select the desired file from the list (there may be several of them, if necessary). Next, select the status of the pages that interest you.
Pay attention to the "Excluded" tab.
If you see groups of pages with problems, for example, they are not indexed, select any page from the list. After checking the page, you can verify its accessibility through the robots.txt file using the Search Console functionality.
If the page is available, you can request that Google index it. After checking, the search engine will decide whether to add the page to the index.
Yandex also has the ability to add pages to the index through the “Page Re-Crawl” tool, but, unfortunately, Yandex does not provide tools for in-depth analysis of the Sitemap in the webmaster.
Sometimes a site can be indexed quite correctly without a Sitemap. However, the absence of this file does not guarantee that the situation will remain unchanged. It is also important to understand that the presence of a page in the Sitemap does not guarantee its inclusion in the index - many factors can prevent this, for example, the classification of the page as LKS (low-quality content) or MPK (less useful content) in Yandex.
If you have any questions about SEO, write to the SEO studio "SEO COMPUTER" at info@seo.computer - we are always ready to help you!
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