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.
Is it bad to have same page listed twice in sitemap?
-
Hello,
I have found that from an HTML (not xml) sitemap of a website, a page has been listed twice. Is it okay or will it be considered duplicate content?
Both the links use same anchor text, but different urls that redirect to another (final) page. I thought ideal way is to use final page in sitemap (and in all internal linking), not the intermediate pages. Am I right?
-
I had it happen in a sitemap I submitted to Google in my Webmaster tools and it didn't like it. So I removed it and resubmitted it.
-
I think the other filled in all the details. But simply put:
XML sitemap? Yes, it will generate an error/warning in the Dashboard console.
HTML sitemap? No, as long as it is listed for better navigation and not keyword loading.
-
Firstly, do you mean a HTML sitemap (i.e. a sitemap page on a website) or an XML sitemap (one that is submitted to Google/Bing for indexing)?
If both links go to the same page, then it's not duplicate content. Duplicate content is the same stuff on different URLs.
If an internal sitemap has two links redirecting to one end page then this is highly inefficient and the links should point directly to the end page.
That being the case, then only one link is really needed.
If... after all that you meant an XML sitemap, then it's not duplicate content to have it listed twice, but it should be only listed once in this case.
-
If it's a sitemap for the users and the page appears under 2 different categories, it's okay. Think usability here.
However, if/when it's the XML sitemap, it should only be there once.
As for the intermediary pages, If I were you, if they offer a good purpose (the reason you have those pages in the 1st place), they should then be listed in both the XML and HTML sitemaps if they help the users.
So to answer your question more directly, if your question is:
Is it bad to have same page listed twice in XML sitemap? Yes, it will generate an error/warning in webmaster console.
Is it bad to have same page listed twice in HTML sitemap? No, if that's what is needed for users, it's okay.
I hope that helps.
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
-
Nofollow/Noindex Category Listing Pages with Filters
Our e-commerce site currently has thousands of duplicate pages indexed because category listing pages with all the different filters selected are indexed. So, for example, you would see indexed: example.com/boots example.com/boots/black example.com/boots/black-size-small etc. There is a logic in place that when more than one filter is selected all the links on the page are nofollowed, but Googlebot is still getting to them, and the variations are being indexed. At this point I'd like to add 'noindex' or canonical tags to the filtered versions of the category pages, but many of these filtered pages are driving traffic. Any suggestions? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | fayfr0 -
What to do with temporary empty pages?
I have a website listing real estate in different areas that are for sale. In small villages, towns, and areas, sometimes there is nothing for sale and therefore the page is completely empty with no content except a and some footer text. I have thousand of landing pages for different areas. For example "Apartments in Tibro" or "Houses in Ljusdahl" and Moz Pro gives me some warnings for "Duplicate Content" on the empty ones (I think it does so because the pages are so empty that they are quite similar). I guess Google could also think bad of my site if I have hundreds or thousands of empty pages even if my total amount of pages are 100,000. So, what to do with these pages for these small cities, towns and villages where there is not always houses for sale? Should I remove them completely? Should I make a 404 when no houses for sale and a 200 OK when there is? Please note that I have totally 100,000+ pages and this is only about 5% of all my pages.
Technical SEO | | marcuslind900 -
Is it good to redirect million of pages on a single page?
My site has 10 lakh approx. genuine urls. But due to some unidentified bugs site has created irrelevant urls 10 million approx. Since we don’t know the origin of these non-relevant links, we want to redirect or remove all these urls. Please suggest is it good to redirect such a high number urls to home page or to throw 404 for these pages. Or any other suggestions to solve this issue.
Technical SEO | | vivekrathore0 -
Is there a maximum sitemap size?
Hi all, Over the last month we've included all images, videos, etc. into our sitemap and now its loading time is rather high. (http://www.troteclaser.com/sitemap.xml) Is there any maximum sitemap size that is recommended from Google?
Technical SEO | | Troteclaser0 -
Low page impressions
Hey there MOZ Geniuses; While checking my webmaster data I noticed that almost all my Google impressions are generated by the home page, most other content pages are showing virtually no impression data <50 (the home page is showing around 1500 - a couple of the pages are in the 150-200 range). the site has been up for about 8 months now. Traffic on average is about 500 visitors, but I'm seeing very little entry other then the home page. Checking the number Sitemap section 27 of 30 are index Webmaster tools are not reporting errors Webmaster keyword impressions are also extremely low 164 keywords with the highest impression count of 79 and dropping from there. MOZ is show very few minor issues although it says that it crawled 10k pages? -- we only have 30 or so. The answer seems obvious, Google is not showing my content ... the question is why and what steps can I take to analyze this? Could there be a possibility of some type of penalty? I welcome all your suggestions: The site is www.calibersi.com
Technical SEO | | VanadiumInteractive0 -
Should all pagination pages be included in sitemaps
How important is it for a sitemap to include all individual urls for the paginated content. Assuming the rel next and prev tags are set up would it be ok to just have the page 1 in the sitemap ?
Technical SEO | | Saijo.George0 -
Is the Authority of Individual Pages Diluted When You Add New Pages?
I was wondering if the authority of individual pages is diluted when you add new pages (in Google's view). Suppose your site had 100 pages and you added 100 new pages (without getting any new links). Would the average authority of the original pages significantly decrease and result in a drop in search traffic to the original pages? Do you worry that adding more pages will hurt pages that were previously published?
Technical SEO | | Charlessipe0 -
How to generate a visual sitemap using sitemap.xml
Are there any tools (online preferably) which will take a sitemap.xml file and generate a visual site map? Seems like an obvious thing to do, but can't find any simple tools for this?
Technical SEO | | k3nn3dy30