Creating XML Sitemaps
- How are images added to Sitemap?
- How are multilingual pages indicating in the Sitemap?
- How does filtering of unsupported content work?
- I have a very large website, what happens when number of scanned pages will go beyond the maximum allowed number of 50,000 URL?
- How to use data filters?
- How do I let search engines know about my Sitemap?
How are images added to Sitemap?
Generator allows to gather and add to the Sitemap file information on images, located on your website pages. For URL-sections of each page, on which images will be found, corresponding information will be added, according to the Google Sitemap-Image protocol.
Next example shows part of the record in Sitemap file for URL http://website.tld/sample.html, which has two images:
<url> <loc>http://website.tld/sample.html</loc> <image:image> <image:loc>http://website.tld/logo.jpg</image:loc> </image:image> <image:image> <image:loc>http://website.tld/photo.jpg</image:loc> </image:image> </url>
How are multilingual pages indicating in the Sitemap?
Mysitemapgenerator can find localized page versions targeting different languages and/or countries.
Our crawler handles HTML tags and HTTP headers.
An example of specifying alternate page URL via HTML Link Element (placed in the <head> section of a web page):
<link rel="alternate" href="http://www.website.tld/alternate_page.html" hreflang="en-GB" />
Link: <http://www.website.tld/alternate_page.html>; rel="alternate"; hreflang="en-GB"
The value of the hreflang attribute must indicate the language code in the ISO 639-1 format and optionally a country code in the ISO 3166-1 Alpha 2 format of an alternate URL.
How does filtering of unsupported content work?
Unlike the free version, where check of the links availability ends simultaneously with the end of the indexing process (when 500 URL were found), in the paid version of the generator check proceeds to the last link, even if the indexing is already completed. This guarantees that redirects or dead links will not be included into Sitemap.
Although this is in agreement with the Sitemaps protocol and is not an error, the possible presence of links, for example, redirect can cause a redirect corresponding warnings in Google Webmaster Tools on the presence of non-direct links in the website map.
I have a very large website, what happens when number of scanned pages will go beyond the maximum allowed number of 50,000 URL?
By default large sitemap is broken down in accordance with the sitemap protocol and search engines recommendations – you will get several Sitemap files, containing no more than 50,000 URL each.
Also you may choose the number of URLs per file by yourself.
How to use data filters?
Data filter – convenient tool used dudring the creation of sitemap, which allows along with page URL to specify the following important data for search engines: priority of particular pages in relation to other website pages and updating mode.
Additionally, filter allows excluding particular pages from the indexing process, which are not needed in the Sitemap file.
Data filters can be applied either for separate pages (for this you need to input full URI of the pages), or for groups of the pages (for this you need to input a part of URL, which corresponds to all similar pages. For example: ".jpg" or "/directory/files").
How do I let search engines know about my Sitemap?
To do it – register your website in webmaster services, provided by search engines (for example: www.google.com/webmasters for Google or webmaster.yandex.ru for Yandex).
After registration, you will be able to submit Sitemaps directly in your account.
Another common way – include in robots.txt the following line:
Sitemap: http://website.tld/mysitemapfile2.xml
Sitemap: http://website.tld/mysitemapfile3.xml