Guidance blog posts
📌 Using sitemaps video intro
Wednesday 10 August 2016
Using sitemaps video intro Check out this helpful video introduction to using sitemaps to help google find content hosted on your website. Of course it isn’t only google that will benefit. Many search engines use sitemaps to inform their search listings so sitemaps are an important part of your SEO (Search Engine Optimization Strategy). What next? Try creating a quick sitemap using our free online sitemap generator. Find out what is the best sitemap generator for you.
📌 Website diagnostic tool
Monday 30 May 2016
Website diagnostic tool We sometimes get contacted by people with questions about why their sitemap wasn’t generated as expected , indeed in some cases returning very few or no pages. In most cases the answers are to do with the structure or format of their website and how it responds to our spider. To help users understand and address these problems we’ve started to automate some standard checks we should normally do manually to help resolve these issues.
📌 How to publish your sitemap
Wednesday 16 March 2016
How to publish your sitemap We are often asked how to publish sitemap once it has been generated. In this FAQ we provide a quick overview of the process. 1) Generate your sitemap First you need to create your sitemap using a sitemap generator. We have a range of options to do this including our : Online sitemap generator for a quick sitemap with up to 2000 pages. WordPress sitemap generator plugin.
📌 Sitemap Example
Monday 1 February 2016
Sitemap Example XML Sitemaps are similar to RSS feeds and use XML to represent the contents of your website in a structured format to give search engines hints about the content of your website . The Sitemap protocol is an open standard supported by the main search engines including Google, Yahoo and Microsoft Bing. An XML Sitemap contains 4 basic elements for each page in your website, but can be extended to include more information :
📌 Which is the best sitemap generator?
Wednesday 6 January 2016
Which is the best sitemap generator? As with most things Sitemap Generators come in a range of flavors from simple online generators to more complex server side scripts. This article provides a quick overview of the type of sitemap generators and some of the things to look out for. Some key questions when to think about when choosing your sitemap generator : What type of sitemap do you need to generate.
📌 HTTPS/SSL Google SEO and XML Sitemaps
Friday 8 August 2014
HTTPS/SSL Google SEO and XML Sitemaps Google recently announced that websites with SSL/HTTPS will gain you a minor ranking boost in an effort to improve online security. This gain is likely to be small to start off with to give webmasters time to adapt their servers and websites, but over time this boost is likely to increase making SSL a key part of your SEO strategy. What do you need to do?
📌 Baidu, Yandex sitemaps and fixes
Monday 4 August 2014
Baidu, Yandex sitemaps and fixes Our sitemaps have always been compatible with Yandex and Baidu. We’ve now added them to the ping feature for RSS sitemaps so that you can easily notify them about your sitemap updates. If you have other services that would be useful please feel free to get in touch. Some users were experiencing problems with the “download all” zip file containing empty files. We believe that issue is now resolved.
📌 What is the best sitemap format?
Tuesday 15 July 2014
What is the best sitemap format? Our sitemap generator produces a number of sitemap formats including HTML, XML and RSS, but which is the right one? The answer is all of them depending on the circumstances. Here are some quick thoughts on why you might use each format. HTML Sitemaps An HTML sitemap was traditionally to help users find pages in your website, but they are also great for helping search engines find your pages organically.
📌 Sitemaps and multiple domains
Tuesday 1 July 2014
Sitemaps and multiple domains We sometimes get asked by people why our sitemap generator doesn’t find all pages in their website. There can be a number of reasons, however one reason we have found is references to multiple domains within the same website structure, in particular homepages that reference a different domain to the one the user specifies for their sitemap.. We recommend you are consistent with your domains. Pick a primary domain and stick to it.
📌 What is a canonical page?
Saturday 21 June 2014
What is a canonical page? A canonical page is the preferred URL of a page or set of pages with duplicate or highly similar content. By adding rel=“canonical” to your pages you can tell search engines about the preferred content / page for a given page or set of pages …. Why use it? The rel=“canonical” element helps search engines reduce duplicate content. To help de-duplicate your content and prevent yourself from being seen to publish duplicate content you should include a canonical url for similar/the same pages.