XML Sitemap instruction in robots.txt = Worth doing?
-
Hi fellow SEO's,
Just a quick one, I was reading a few guides on Bing Webmaster tools and found that you can use the robots.txt file to point crawlers/bots to your XML sitemap (they don't look for it by default).
I was just wondering if it would be worth creating a robots.txt file purely for the purpose of pointing bots to the XML sitemap?
I've submitted it manually to Google and Bing webmaster tools but I was thinking more for the other bots (I.e. Mozbot, the SEOmoz bot?).
Any thoughts would be appreciated!
Regards,
Ash
-
Thanks for the answer and link John!
Regards,
Ash
-
I think it's worth it as it should only take a few minutes to set up, and it's good to have a robots.txt, even if it's allowing everything. Put a text file named "robots.txt" in your root directory with:
<code>User-agent: * Disallow: Sitemap: http://www.yourdomain.com/none-standard-location/sitemap.xml</code>
Read more about robots.txt here: http://www.seomoz.org/learn-seo/robotstxt.
-
It is not going to make any difference. Time is better spend in fixing crawling & indexing issues of the website.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Hreflang in header...should I do a Sitemap?
A client implemented hreflang tags in the site header. MOZ says you aren't supposed to do an hreflang Sitemap as well. My question is how should I do a Sitemap now (or should I do one at all)?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | navdm0 -
Sitemaps during a migration - which is the best way of dealing with them?
Many SEOs I know simply upload the new sitemap once the new site is launched - some keep the old site's URLs on the new sitemap (for a while) to facilitate the migration - others upload both the old and the new website together, to support the migration. Which is the best way to proceed? Thanks, Luke
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | McTaggart0 -
Robots.txt help
Hi Moz Community, Google is indexing some developer pages from a previous website where I currently work: ddcblog.dev.examplewebsite.com/categories/sub-categories Was wondering how I include these in a robots.txt file so they no longer appear on Google. Can I do it under our homepage GWT account or do I have to have a separate account set up for these URL types? As always, your expertise is greatly appreciated, -Reed
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | IceIcebaby0 -
Should sitemap include https pages?
Hi guys, Trying to figure out some onsite issues I've been having. Would appreciate any feedback on the following 2 questions: My homepage (http://mysite.com) is a 301 redirect to https://mysite.com, which is under SSL. Only 2 pages of my site are https, the rest are http. Should the directory of my sitemap be https://mysite.com/sitemap.xml or should it be kept with http (even though the redirected homepage is to https)? Should my sitemap include the https pages (only 2 pages) as well as the http? Thanks, G
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | G.Anderson0 -
Robot.txt help
Hi, We have a blog that is killing our SEO. We need to Disallow Disallow: /Blog/?tag*
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Studio33
Disallow: /Blog/?page*
Disallow: /Blog/category/*
Disallow: /Blog/author/*
Disallow: /Blog/archive/*
Disallow: /Blog/Account/.
Disallow: /Blog/search*
Disallow: /Blog/search.aspx
Disallow: /Blog/error404.aspx
Disallow: /Blog/archive*
Disallow: /Blog/archive.aspx
Disallow: /Blog/sitemap.axd
Disallow: /Blog/post.aspx But Allow everything below /Blog/Post The disallow list seems to keep growing as we find issues. So rather than adding in to our Robot.txt all the areas to disallow. Is there a way to easily just say Allow /Blog/Post and ignore the rest. How do we do that in Robot.txt Thanks0 -
Sitemaps
I am working with a site that has sitemaps broken down very specifically. By page type: article, page etc and also broken down by Category. Unfortunately, this is not done hierarchically. Category and page type are separate maps, they are not nested. My question here is: Is is detrimental to have two separate sitemaps that point to the same pages? Should we eliminate one of these taxonomies, or maybe just try to make them hierarchical? IE item type -> category -> pagetitle Is there an issue with having a sitemap index that points to a nested sitemap index? (I dont think so, but might as well be sure. Thanks Moz Community! Can't delete my question, but turns out that isn't how they are structured. Food for thought anyway I suppose.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MarloSchneider0 -
How to stop pages being crawled from xml feed?
We have a site that has an xml feed going out to many other sites.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jazavide
The xml feed is behind a password protected page so cannot use a cannonical link to point back to original url. How do we stop the pages being crawled on all of the sites using the xml feed? as with hundreds using it after launch it will cause instant duplicate content issues? Thanks0 -
Will disallowing in robots.txt noindex a page?
Google has indexed a page I wish to remove. I would like to meta noindex but the CMS isn't allowing me too right now. A suggestion o disallow in robots.txt would simply stop them crawling I expect or is it also an instruction to noindex? Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Brocberry0