Entries from Search Engine Roundtable tagged with 'sitemaps'

Google Sitemaps New Error: "Dynamic Content"

Several webmasters are noticing new errors found in their Google Webmaster Tools Sitemaps error diagnostic section. The new error is: All the URLs in your Sitemap are marked as having dynamic content. We have threads at WebmasterWorld and Google Groups...

Google Sitemaps: Are They Really Important for SEO?

There are many SEOs spilt on the topic of the value in submitting a Sitemap to Google. In my opinion, it is clear that if a site has very poor navigation and on-page SEO, submitting a Sitemap might be your...

The Video URL Is Not Always Optional in Google Video Sitemaps

Video search engine optimization has been a hot topic since the launch of Google Universal Search. A Google Groups thread I have been tracking for some time, gives us some insight into how to improve the visibility of your videos...

Google Recommends You Split Sitemap Files By File Type

A Google Groups thread reports an issue (or a feature, depending on your view) with Google's Sitemap handling. In short, a webmaster used one Sitemap file for all his content. In that file, he specified the geo data by using...

Google Announces Video Sitemaps

Do you want your videos to be more searchable in Google Video Search? Then check out Google's newest announcement relating to Google Video Sitemaps. Google says: By submitting this video-specific Sitemap in addition to your standard Sitemap, you can specify...

Microsoft Now Using Autodiscovery Sitemaps for Crawl Assistance

The official Microsoft Live Search representative at WebmasterWorld said that Microsoft will finally be supporting Sitemaps (for real this time) now. Microsoft will currently support autodiscovery of your sitemap file if it is included within your robots.txt file. I have...

Are XML Sitemaps Files a Welcoming Door in for Scrapers?

An excellent WebmasterWorld thread asks if the new Sitemaps Auto-Discovery supported by all four major search engines is not just an easy way for search engines to find and index your content. The thread asks if this enables scrapers to...

Sitemaps Ping URLs at Google, Yahoo, & Ask.com

Last week, Google, Yahoo, Microsoft & Ask.com To All Support Sitemaps Autodiscovery. So how do you ping these services to notify the search engines of an update to your Sitemaps, if you do not want to wait for them to...

Google, Yahoo, Microsoft & Ask.com To All Support Sitemaps Autodiscovery

Great news from yesterday at SES. Danny has a great roundup describing that Search Engines Unite On Sitemaps Autodiscovery at Search Engine Land and I have some more details with my coverage of the Sitemaps & URL Submission session from...

Is Microsoft's Live Search Ever Going to Add Sitemaps Support?

On November 15, 2006 Google, Microsoft & Yahoo! Back SiteMaps Protocol and Microsoft posted about it back then that they are supporting it. We are 100% behind this protocol - this kind of collaboration will help improve the search experience...

Google Publishes Mobile Sitemaps Patent Application

Bill Slawski, Cre8asite Forum Admin, started a thread at Cre8asite Forums about a patent application Google recently published named mobile sitemaps. The abstract reads: A method of analyzing documents or relationships between documents includes receiving a notification of an available...

Google Webmaster Central Adds Link Analysis Tool

Google has announced the release of a tool that many thought would never come but always dreamt of - a tool that shows us our links for our sites. It has been sought over since Google changed the link command....

Losing Trust in Google's Webmaster Central?

We have reported time after time again the issues with Google's Webmaster Central tools, specifically Sitemaps. It is a wonderful tool, it allows you to see a ton of data about your site plus submit data back to Google. But...

Quick & Official Way To Check Your Site's "Status" in Google

Typically, if you want to make sure your site is indexed in Google, you would use a site command (i.e. site:www.domain.com) to see if Google returns results for your site. You can also search on just the domain (i.e. www.domain.com),...

New Sitemaps Protocol May Hurt Your Listings in Yahoo! Search?

Last month Google, Microsoft & Yahoo! Back SiteMaps Protocol, so it makes sense to begin converting your sitemaps to one standardized file. One such webmaster did that, submitted the new file to Yahoo! and claimed that Yahoo!'s Site Explorer dropped...

The Why & How Google Handles Hacked Sites

Matt Cutts wrote an excellent blog post named How google handles hacked sites. This is very interesting to me, since I had a similar situation with a client in the past (see Jennifer Convertibles Web Site Hacked & Delisted In...

Update on Sitemaps Common Words Report

The other day we reported that Google Webmaster Sitemaps Tool Back With Old Data? where I said, there was in issue with the common words. The issue is most likely old data. Vanessa Fox replied to the forum thread at...

Google Webmaster Sitemaps Tool Back With Old Data?

Like any new tool, there are bugs, and Google's Webmaster Central tools, including their powerful Sitemaps tool, seems to have its share of bugs. Two different reports come from WebmasterWorld with possible bugs in the tool over the weekend. The...

A Look at Sitemaps for Google News

Google released a Sitemaps protocol and reporting engine for the Google News index. I am lucky enough to be included in Google News, so I am able to share with you some of the reports I have in my Sitemaps...

Confusion with Microsoft as Search Engines Unite with Sitemaps Protocol

Last week the search engines, Google, Microsoft and Yahoo! united to provide one standard sitemaps protocol for submission to the search engines for page inclusion. But there is confusion as to where one would submit a sitemaps file to Microsoft....

Google Sitemaps Tools Sends All Sites Back into Pending Verification?

This morning, I logged into my Google Webmaster Central Sitemaps tool and noticed all my sites are "pending verification." I then found a thread at WebmasterWorld with an other person reporting this issue. So I dug deeper and found a...

Google, Microsoft & Yahoo! Back SiteMaps Protocol

Brett Tabke posted a thread at WebmasterWorld showing that the SiteMaps Protocol is backed by Google, Microsoft and Yahoo! Sitemaps are an easy way for webmasters to inform search engines about pages on their sites that are available for crawling....

Google's Sitemap Tool Showing Random Pages in Highest PageRank Stat

In Google Sitemaps there is a statistic under stats/ crawl statistics that shows you "Your page with the highest PageRank." It looks like this for this site: Now, several people are reporting that they have heard of or seen themselves,...

Google Webmaster Central Sitemaps Tool Shows a Rollback?

Folks at WebmasterWorld are reporting that the Google Webmaster Central Sitemaps tool is now showing older data. One member said when he looked at his last visit date to his home page it was November 7th. He then looked again...

Should You Group All Your Sites Under One Webmaster Central Google Account?

There are two threads, both the same exact subject, one at Search Engine Watch Forums and the other at WebmasterWorld that asks if it is wise to use one Google Account for all your sites in your Google Webmaster Central...

Google Site Command Becoming More Accurate?

A WebmasterWorld thread has some credible sources claiming the site:www.domain.com, site command, at Google is becoming more accurate. In the past, conducting a site command on a domain may have returned a lot more pages than what is currently accessible...

Google Sitemaps Webmaster Central Requires Verification Code

A WebmasterWorld thread asks why after he set up his site in Google's Webmaster Central Sitemaps, his site was no longer "verified." Vanessa Fox from Google replied saying; We recommend that you leave the verification file or meta tag in...

Jennifer Convertibles Web Site Back in Google

Well that was fast! After I resubmitted the site October 25th at 7am and I checked again this morning at it is back in the index. This is after Jennifer Convertibles Web Site Hacked & Delisted In Google.com, I decided...

Google Adds Features to Webmaster Tools Section

The Google Webmaster Central blog announced the release of several new tools added to the Webmaster Central toolbox. The new features are pretty neat and include; Googlebot activity reports that shows the "number of pages Googlebot's crawled from your site...


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