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Sitemap Technical Question

by TiffanyLambert
4 replies
Hey Warriors!

I use the typical sitemap plugin thingies on my blogs - easy enough for a technophobe like me.

But now I want to use an XML sitemap on my static site (not a blog). I did use a generator and it worked in my Google webmaster tools.

My question is this:

Do I have to redo and resubmit the sitemap.xml file every time I add pages? I thought was automatic like my plugin but every time I log into webmaster tools, the sitemap stats still show my original 10 pages even though Google's actually indexed all 21 pages so far.

Thanks for your help ahead of time!
Tiff
#question #sitemap #technical
  • Profile picture of the author Andyhenry
    Hi Tiff,

    It depends what you want it for.

    By default it will NOT update on its own and you would need to update it yourself.

    If it's just for indexing purposes then once Google has found your site and the new pages are linked to - they'll get picked up by Google anyway so you don't need to resubmit a sitemap in order for them to do anything.

    The sitemap is more for your visitors. For Google it's just a handy way for the bot to get to your pages and worth doing when you first make the site, but unless you create pages that are not linked to from any of your initial pages then Google will just do the rest on its own.

    Andy
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    nothing to see here.

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  • Profile picture of the author Microsys
    If you are using an external sitemap generator tool (website, installed script, software program) for a static/normal-db/mixed-platforms website you would need to configure the sitemapper to run e.g. once/daily at night (or whatever) to scan and upload new XML sitemap files
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    XML-Sitemaps-Generator.com | HREFLang-Sitemaps.com | HTML-Sitemap.com | TechSEO360.com
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  • Profile picture of the author Mister Rex
    Sitemaps are generally more helpful with larger sites. What happens is, your site is allotted a crawl budget. When spiders come to the site, they only crawl a certain amount of pages. Using the xml sitemap and setting priorities helps the bots crawl the pages that are more important more often and skip the pages that are low on the priority list.

    They are also GREAT for pages that are orphaned and are not linked to from other pages on the site. Google might actually miss those pages altogether if not for the sitemap.

    Most static sites are small, so I would be willing to bet your site isnt big enough to find an xml sitemap beneficial.
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  • Profile picture of the author TiffanyLambert
    Thanks y'all!

    My site is small now, but it's going to be evergreen and have thousands of pages once I'm done with it - just low growth because it's all unique content.

    I thought I needed a sitemap for crawling purposes but Google always manages to find them anyway (new pages).

    So I guess I'll just leave it alone. LOL!

    Tiff
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