SEO and Sitemap issues

Teetime · January 13, 2016

Last fall I started the process of replacing my old website with a replacement site here at Smugmug. I have been up and running on Smugmug now for about a month. Today I have been trying to determine why I not showing up in Google searches. I'm finding several things that are confusing and I hope someone here can shed some light on these findings from Google's Webmaster Tools:

1. Under Sitemaps it says "This Sitemap was submitted Mar 27, 2013, and processed Nov 7, 2015." This would have been the old sitemap for my previous website. Note that I transferred the original domain from the old site to my new Smugmug site when it was ready to publish late last year.

2. When I click on the link to the sitemap at http://www.takeonesolutions.com/sitemap.xml, it is blank.

3. I have the following error on Google's Sitemap page: "We encountered an error while trying to access your Sitemap. Please ensure your Sitemap follows our guidelines and can be accessed at the location you provided and then resubmit."

4. I also see several various warnings and errors related to missing pages that were in my old site.

Are these problems that Smugmug can resolve for me? If not, what should I do to get these issues fixed?

Hikin' Mike · January 13, 2016

Remove your old sitemap in Google Search Console and use the Smugmug's sitemap 'www.takeonesolutions.com/sitemap-index.xml' instead.

leftquark · January 14, 2016

Thanks for beating me to it Mike! Yes, using the correct sitemap URL should do the trick!

Teetime · January 14, 2016

leftquark wrote: »

Thanks for beating me to it Mike! Yes, using the correct sitemap URL should do the trick!

Thanks Mike and Aaron. I now have the proper sitemap in Google. One followup question: Google likes to see video on a site. I have quite a few videos but because of performance issues with the SM video I am hosting videos on Vimeo and using the Vimeo content block to show the videos on my site. Will these show up as video to Google? Is there a way to test/verify this?

EDIT: I found this link that documents sitemaps for embedded video. Is SM using this technique in our sitemaps? Is there a way for me to actually look at the SM sitemap?

Hikin' Mike · January 14, 2016

Teetime wrote: »

Google likes to see video on a site.

Do you have a link where Google says this?

Teetime wrote: »

Will these show up as video to Google? Is there a way to test/verify this?

You can always use `site:takeonesolutions.com'. This shows what Google has indexed. You can do the same for other search engines.

Teetime · January 14, 2016

Hikin' Mike wrote: »

Do you have a link where Google says this?

You can always use `site:takeonesolutions.com'. This shows what Google has indexed. You can do the same for other search engines.

As far as I know Google does not publicly discuss the details of their search strategies. But there has been much written by others who have observed that all else equal, a site with video will score higher with Google than a site without. Usually it goes something like this (source here)

1. Rank Better in Google

One of the factors of Google’s algorithm for search rankings is “dwell time,” or how long visitors stay on your website. This may also be referred to as “long clicks vs. short clicks.” The idea is that if people are spending a lot of time on your website, it must have quality content. A great way to capture—and hold—visitors’ attention is to provide a short, compelling video.

Businesses that include video on their site generally see higher engagement rates, higher click-through rates, and higher conversion rates. In fact, 80 percent of people who watch a video ad will recall it even a month later, and 12 percent will purchase the product from the ad.

Google did implement video sitemaps starting (I think) in 2007 and encouraged sites with video to include this extension to the existing sitemap. They also started showing videos in individual search results. I got a lot of hits from these on my previous non-SM website.

I have now determined that SM is not generating a video sitemap for my videos. In addition, Vimeo video on my site can not be linked/embedded by other sites, even if this is turned on at Vimeo. In combination, these two thing ensure that video on my SM site is pretty irrelevant from a SEO perspective.

At a minimum, I think SM should add form fields to their video content block to capture all of the relevant video data that Google is looking for, and incorporate this into the site maps they generate.

Hikin' Mike · January 15, 2016

Thanks.

SEO and Sitemap issues

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