Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Does a KML file have to be indexed by Google?
-
I'm currently using the Yoast Local SEO plugin for WordPress to generate my KML file which is linked to from the GeoSitemap. Check it out http://www.holycitycatering.com/sitemap_index.xml.
A competitor of mine just told me that this isn't correct and that the link to the KML should be a downloadable file that's indexed in Google. This is the opposite of what Yoast is saying... "He's wrong.
And the KML isn't a file, it's being rendered. You wouldn't want it to be indexed anyway, you just want Google to find the information in there.What is the best way to create a KML? Should it be indexed?
-
There isn't really a good way that I know of currently to verify Google has indexed it...
-
Thanks for getting back! I wanted to show you a screenshot of my GWT. The geo_sitemap.xml is crawled with no errors but the locations.kml that it's linking to is never seen. That being said, how it the KML being seen by Google? Is there some way that I can verify?
-
Yeah we might as well ditch that
but yeah it's crawled as a normal XML file as it doesn't give any errors at all in GWT. -
Thanks for chiming in on this, Joost.
I wasn't 100% certain that geo_sitemap.xml was a problem, but the xmlns reference to http://www.google.com/geo/schemas/sitemap/1.0 in line 2 I thought might be throwing Google off - I take it they'll just ignore this and crawl the doc as any other XML file?
Thanks again.
-
I'm sorry to say Mike above is wrong. He's been deceived by the file name and didn't actually look to see what it did I guess. Our geo_sitemap.xml file is a normal XML sitemap, linking to the KML file, it's not actually a geo sitemap, it's just named that way for historic reasons.
See the first question on this thread and Susan Moskwa's answer: https://plus.google.com/+SusanMoskwa/posts/CmZejMkLN4r
-
Hi Anthony,
Sorry for the delay on this. In migrating over to the new Moz.com platform, Q&A messaging for admins has been a bit spotty.
You are right - geositemap.xml is using the "geo sitemap" protocol that Google no longer supports. This may cause Google not to follow the reference to locations.kml contained therein.
Unfortunately I don't have an alternative recommendation to Yoast's SEO plugin for this. Manually creating your XML may be your best option, or using software like GSiteCrawler to speed up the process, then manually add your KML file.
If this output from Yoast's plugin can't be manually configured, and the KML file is important enough to your goals that you consider it a top priority to have it crawled, it seems a clear choice to me to move away from this plugin and find a better solution. Unfortunately, I haven't dealt with KML files for WordPress in the past. I'd probably recommend site crawling software to speed up the process, then switching to manual to add this in.
Best,
Mike -
Hi Mike,
I think I'm starting to understand where you are going with this. It sounds like I need to index the KML using a link from the footer of the site instead of from the geositemap that Yoast creates since Google won't crawl it or past it.
I read on Google Sitemap page:
"We recommmend that you tell Google about geographically-based URLs by including them in a regular Web Sitemap."
If the KML is referrenced in the sitemap_index.xml, then it's being seen by Google but if the geositemap.xml is between the sitemap_index.xml and the locations.kml, then it is hidden from Google.
All of this is being controlled by the an SEO plugin for WordPress from Yoast. I am wondering if I need to create the KML manually and upload to the sitemap or if should I let Yoast continue to render it. Mike, do you use a specific tool/plugin for KML creation for Wordpress websites?
-
Hi Anthony,
"Indexed in Google" is irrelevant here. Sitemap protocol and the searchable web index have little to do with each other directly (sitemap files are not searchable in the web index).
If you're following the instructions on this page, you're good. Geo sitemap tags are no longer supported by Google.
Note: When I click on the link to http://www.holycitycatering.com/geo_sitemap.xml your server returns a "page not found" error, so I'm not sure where your geo URLs are located...
-Mike
-
If google webmaster tools doesn't return an error on when you test the sitemap then it should be indexing it fine.
-
How do you know know if Google can see the KML? It's not been listed in any of the search results for our sites using this plugin and this competitor is telling my client I'm wrong because you can't see the file in Google Webmasters.
I guess the main question is if Google isn't indexing the KML and Webmaster Tools doesn't index it, how do we know it sees the file?
-
There's one rule in SEO, Yoast is always right
(not only because he's Dutch). But in this case he's right. By mentioning the KML file to Google it knows where it could be found. So it will trigger a visit to the file which get generated on the fly + by doing this it prevents you from being indexed.
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
-
Site appearing and disappearing from google serps.
Hi, My website is normally on page 2-3 on google consistently. Over the past month it has been appearing and then completely disappearing from the serps. One day it will be on page 2, then the next day completely missing from the serps. When i check the index it seems to be indexed correctly when doing site:mysite.com. I don't understand why this keeps happening, any experience with this issue? It doesn't seem to be a google dance as far as I can tell. When my other sites dance they typically just go up or down a few ranks for a couple weeks until they stabilize. Not completely fall off the search engine.
Algorithm Updates | | Chris_www0 -
A page will not be indexed if published without linking from anywhere?
Hi all, I have noticed one page from our competitors' website which has been hardly linked from one internal page. I just would like to know if the page not linked anywhere get indexed by Google or not? Will it be found by Google? What if a page not linked internally but go some backlinks from other websites? Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
Google ranking impact: Returning visitor vs New visitor
Hi all, If a website's traffic increase in "New visitors"; will this impact rankings? Do the website overall traffic affect rankings? How much this is related with ranking improvement for main keywords? Just because thousands of visits increased for website, will it count as a strong ranking improvement signal? Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
Using Google to find a discontinued product.
Hi Guys. I mostly use this forum for business questions, but now it's a personal one! I'm trying to find a supplier that might still have discontinued product. It's the Behritone C5A speaker monitor. All my searches bring up a plethora of pages that appear to sell the product... but they have no stock. (Wouldn't removing these pages make for a better internet?) No 2nd hand ones on eBay 😞 Do you have any suggestion about how I can get more relevant results... i.e find supplier that might still have stock? Any tips or trick I may be able to use to help me with this? Many thanks in advance to an awesome community 🙂 Isaac.
Algorithm Updates | | isaac6631 -
Celebrity Profile On The Side of Google For High Profile Person
Hello! When I google "Justin Timberlake" I see web search results and a sidebar. See image below: http://screencast.com/t/qwYeiFZQRzT How does one get their results to display like this? Is this something that Google creates automatically or is it something the celebrity initiates/creates on their behalf. Does the celebrity have any options to choose from as to what displays on this sidebar? What is this called? I look forward to your response. qwYeiFZQRzT
Algorithm Updates | | InternetRep0 -
Google is forcing a 301 by truncating our URLs
Just recently we noticed that google has indexed truncated urls for many of our pages that get 301'd to the correct page. For example, we have:
Algorithm Updates | | mmac
http://www.eventective.com/USA/Massachusetts/Bedford/107/Doubletree-Hotel-Boston-Bedford-Glen.html as the url linked everywhere and that's the only version of that page that we use. Google somehow figured out that it would still go to the right place via 301 if they removed the html filename from the end, so they indexed just: http://www.eventective.com/USA/Massachusetts/Bedford/107/ The 301 is not new. It used to 404, but (probably 5 years ago) we saw a few links come in with the html file missing on similar urls so we decided to 301 them instead thinking it would be helpful. We've preferred the longer version because it has the name in it and users that pay attention to the url can feel more confident they are going to the right place. We've always used the full (longer) url and google used to index them all that way, but just recently we noticed about 1/2 of our urls have been converted to the shorter version in the SERPs. These shortened urls take the user to the right page via 301, so it isn't a case of the user landing in the wrong place, but over 100,000 301s may not be so good. You can look at: site:www.eventective.com/usa/massachusetts/bedford/ and you'll noticed all of the urls to businesses at the top of the listings go to the truncated version, but toward the bottom they have the full url. Can you explain to me why google would index a page that is 301'd to the right page and has been for years? I have a lot of thoughts on why they would do this and even more ideas on how we could build our urls better, but I'd really like to hear from some people that aren't quite as close to it as I am. One small detail that shouldn't affect this, but I'll mention it anyway, is that we have a mobile site with the same url pattern. http://m.eventective.com/USA/Massachusetts/Bedford/107/Doubletree-Hotel-Boston-Bedford-Glen.html We did not have the proper 301 in place on the m. site until the end of last week. I'm pretty sure it will be asked, so I'll also mention we have the rel=alternate/canonical set up between the www and m sites. I'm also interested in any thoughts on how this may affect rankings since we seem to have been hit by something toward the end of last week. Don't hesitate to mention anything else you see that may have triggered whatever may have hit us. Thank you,
Michael0 -
Do search engines always pay heed to no index instructions?
Hi, I am currently working on a site that relies solely on it's images to attract traffic. My concern is that search engines will index our images, make them available through image searches and therefore allow our potential visitors to bypass our website completely. I know that there are a number of methods available such as disallowing images in robots.txt or using "noimageindex" tags in the HTML etc. but do search engines always pay attention to these requests? Does anyone have any experience with no indexing images? Or are there any methods that are guaranteed to work? Thanks in Advance.
Algorithm Updates | | BallyhooLtd0
