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August 4, 2008

Google Sitemaps "Too Many Redirects" Warning

Google Webmaster Tools is now reporting "too many redirects" within Sitemaps files. A WebmasterWorld thread has reported the warnings back last week. I have finally hunted down a screen shot of such an error:

Too Many Redirects Google Sitemaps

The only way to see this error is to submit a Sitemap file to Google and for one or more of those URLs to contain a redirect of some sort.

The additional help Google links to is over here, which says "When we processed your Sitemap, we found that some URLs aren't accessible to Googlebot because they contain too many redirects. Please change the URLs in your Sitemap that redirect and replace them with the destination URL (the redirect target)."

The specific error I see is a "HTTP Error: 301 (Moved permanently)." But that is the type of 301 redirect Google says to use when "permanently redirecting from one page to another." In any event, it is best to replace the Sitemap file with a file that has no redirects at all.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.



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posted rustybrick in Google Optimization at August 4, 2008 7:48 AM Comments (4)

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Comments

Yup had this happen to a few of my sitemaps. I wonder if they are any penalties associated it. I have not seen any.

 

Posted by Jaan Kanellis at August 4, 2008 16:13

We mentioned this warning in the Webmaster Help Groups a while back. This is really a warning, so you don't have to worry about any "penalties" or whatnot :). The problem is simple: We assume that you want the URLs in your Sitemap file indexed. However, by 301 redirecting those URLs, you're effectively telling us that you don't want those URLs indexed but rather the redirection target. So in the end, it would make much more sense to just include the real URL in your Sitemap file instead of one that just points to that URL.

 

Posted by JohnMu at August 5, 2008 04:56

As a novice how do you include the real url in the sitemap. Also I am always changing my urls as I have 400 products and sometimes I find better keyword to use as product headings which in effect changes my urls I am usinf oscommerce. Any ideas

 

Posted by Andrew at August 10, 2008 21:48

in robots.txt nofol the 301 line?

 

Posted by Cliffh at August 15, 2008 23:42

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