Sitemap mistake or not?

babayaga14

babayaga14

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Hi guys,

I've noticed that my site has an old canonical domain sitemap. By that, I mean that a while ago, the main homepage URL was 'https://www.mydomain.com', so we added a sitemap for that version of the domain. A few months ago, we redirected the site to just 'mydomain.com', but I've noticed that the sitemaps are still connected to the old 'www' version.

How big of an error is that? Is it affecting our rankings or crawl budget?
 
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i do not think it is a major issue if the redirects are working properly but i would still update the sitemap to the current canonical version.
it helps keep things cleaner for google and avoid any unnecessary confusion.
i have seen sites rank fine with this setup but fixing it is definitely worth doing.
 
It's not a big problem, but it’s not ideal either. If your sitemap still shows the old "www" version, Google might get a little confused, even though your redirects fix most of it. Just update the sitemap to the new non-www version so everything stays clean and consistent.
 
it's usually not a major issue but you will still need to update the sitemap to reflect the current canonical URLs. It helps keep things clean and removes any unnecessary signals that could confuse search engines over time.
 
If the www version 301 redirects properly toward the non-www one, then it usually isnt a big issue at all. Google can follow that redirect thing, but it is still better practice to tweak your sitemap so it lists only the canonical urls, not the other ones.

It likely wont hurt rankings directly, but it may add needless crawl activity and give confusing signals. I would update the sitemap, resubmit it in Google Search Console, and confirm that all canonicals, internal linking, and redirects point in the same direction, meaning the non-www version only.
 
babayaga14 said:
Hi guys,

I've noticed that my site has an old canonical domain sitemap. By that, I mean that a while ago, the main homepage URL was 'https://www.mydomain.com', so we added a sitemap for that version of the domain. A few months ago, we redirected the site to just 'mydomain.com', but I've noticed that the sitemaps are still connected to the old 'www' version.

How big of an error is that? Is it affecting our rankings or crawl budget?
Click to expand...
Simply check
'https://www.mydomain.com/sitemap.xml', Google only read these urls while crawling your site, or find new pages for site.
Internal linking might not expose all url to crawlers
 
It slows down your SEO progress because you are forcing Googlebot to follow a redirect chain for every single link. Swap it out for the correct non-www sitemap to ensure your crawl budget goes toward ranking new content.
 
babayaga14 said:
Hi guys,

I've noticed that my site has an old canonical domain sitemap. By that, I mean that a while ago, the main homepage URL was 'https://www.mydomain.com', so we added a sitemap for that version of the domain. A few months ago, we redirected the site to just 'mydomain.com', but I've noticed that the sitemaps are still connected to the old 'www' version.

How big of an error is that? Is it affecting our rankings or crawl budget?
Click to expand...
It won’t get you disqualified from the ranking, but it is a technical aspect that does make a difference. If there is any discrepancy betwen the canonial URL, internal linking, and sitemap URL, it neds to be sorted out and you ned to submit the revised sitemap.
 
Not a critical error, but worth cleaning up. Google bot wastes crawl budget by hitting the old www sitemap URLs and getting redirected instead of crawling your actual content directly. Submit new sitemap to the right website will save the crawl budget that are burning for nothing.
 
Golden Day said:
It slows down your SEO progress because you are forcing Googlebot to follow a redirect chain for every single link. Swap it out for the correct non-www sitemap to ensure your crawl budget goes toward ranking new content.
Click to expand...
This is what I have heard. That it affects ranking actually plus its waste of crawl budget.
 
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