Editing Sitemap

[Do_Follow]

Hi

Im not new to SEO but when I worked for an agency I handled other parts of the business. Since leaving that agency over the past 3 months Ive taught myself how to build my first WP website and applying some of things that I had learned from the agency.

I have some questions about my sitemap. I did have my website live while doing work on it at times and forgot to put it on maintenance mode. It seems like google crawled it and is putting irrelevant pages on my sitemap. Im seeing everything from pages I had created and haven't completed to certain pages with my business email as the heading over a blog?

Im trying to figure out how to clean this up if possible. My site is brand new and just went officially live last Monday. Not sure if in time all those pages will disappear and the good ones be updated?

 

[rusomike90]

delete those pages off your website, then reindex your sitemap on your google analytics account, will take some time to make the adjustment on its own. But make sure the pages are either deleted or in private mode.

If your website just went live last Monday, you have a long way to go buddy. Keep it up and check alot of threads on BHW about on-page, off-page, and technical SEO.

 

[Rufai]

Yes just delete the posts/pages and refetch your sitemap on GSC

 

[Do_Follow]

Yes just delete the posts/pages and refetch your sitemap on GSC

Looks like some of these pages were hidden within my theme that I just found so I deleted them. But there are some like a testimonials page that feeds into my about page that I cant delete. In Yoast advanced theres an option to select 'no' so search engines wont show this content in search results. Should it eventually disappear from my sitemap? Or do I have to add the sitemap link again in SC and I believe I read there is an option to deindex.

 

[Do_Follow]

delete those pages off your website, then reindex your sitemap on your google analytics account, will take some time to make the adjustment on its own. But make sure the pages are either deleted or in private mode.

If your website just went live last Monday, you have a long way to go buddy. Keep it up and check alot of threads on BHW about on-page, off-page, and technical SEO.

How long do you think until pages show up in organic search?

Im pretty good with page structure, H headings, image alt text, and URL structure. I do have a bunch of off page stuff still to do.

 

[Rufai]

In Yoast advanced theres an option to select 'no' so search engines wont show this content in search results. Should it eventually disappear from my sitemap? Or do I have to add the sitemap link again in SC and I believe I read there is an option to deindex.

What the option does it that it prevents search engine from indexing the page but it will still appear on your sitemap unless you delete it.

 

[PixelPulse]

Delete your post from your sitemap and reload your GSC

 

[Do_Follow]

Delete your post from your sitemap and reload your GSC

How do you delete from sitemap? I was only able to delete from website and most disappeared from my sitemap

But now im seeing some of those pages in GSC here. Do I need to clean this up, does it effect the performance of my site?

 

[serbunn]

It sounds like you’ve got some cleanup to do with your sitemap. To fix this, you should update your sitemap to include only the relevant, completed pages and resubmit it to Google Search Console. Also, consider adding noindex tags to any incomplete or irrelevant pages to prevent them from being crawled. Over time, this should help Google reindex your site correctly.

 

[randyseoppc]

Hi

Im not new to SEO but when I worked for an agency I handled other parts of the business. Since leaving that agency over the past 3 months Ive taught myself how to build my first WP website and applying some of things that I had learned from the agency.

I have some questions about my sitemap. I did have my website live while doing work on it at times and forgot to put it on maintenance mode. It seems like google crawled it and is putting irrelevant pages on my sitemap. Im seeing everything from pages I had created and haven't completed to certain pages with my business email as the heading over a blog?

Im trying to figure out how to clean this up if possible. My site is brand new and just went officially live last Monday. Not sure if in time all those pages will disappear and the good ones be updated?

It's common for websites to experience indexing issues, especially when they're under development. To tackle this, create a fresh new sitemap that reflects your completed pages and submit it to Google Search Console. It might take some for Google to re-index your site and remove the old pages, you can use Robots.txt to temporarily remove the access to the incomplete pages until they're ready. Also you can use URL parameters to exclude the unfinished from search results.