[Plugin: WordPress SEO by Yoast] How to submit sitemap?

I think I’d suggest you to use the Google XML sitemap

I thought the Yoast Sitemap was generated for google?

You could do that or you could just submit sitemap_index.xml to Google Webmaster tools…

https://yoast.com/xml-sitemap-in-the-wordpress-seo-plugin/

From the FAQ

So there’s no sitemap.xml file anymore?

No, correct. This change was made to prevent collisions with other sitemaps, something that happened quite regularly. You can safely remove it from Google Webmaster Tools and other search engine portals.

Ok I’ll just submit the sitemap_index thanks.

The problem was that it contained 3 other sitemap files within it, but all hosted on the root domain, google will still be able to detect/crawl them right? (as they are not hosted in a sitemap_index folder).

I hope i’m making sense here…

Thanks.

The problem was that it contained 3 other sitemap files within it

Not really a problem, the search engines understand those references/links and gets all the data anyways.

I’m sure there is a good reason for NOT doing this, but you can always perform a redirect like so in .htaccess above your # BEGIN WordPress section:

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteRule ^sitemap.xml  https://%{SERVER_NAME}/sitemap_index.xml [R=301,L]
</IfModule>

I use %{SERVER_NAME} because I’m using multisite and want the correct sitemap loaded for the site requested.

Registering the real sitemap file is better and if you stop using Yoast’s plugin you’ll have to remember to take out these additions.

Ok thanks I’ll try that now.

I am having nothing but problems trying to get google to index my site on webmaster tools.

It says this in google webmaster tools under warnings for sitemap index:
Sitemap contains urls which are blocked by robots.txt.

Also getting the same warning for every page/post submitted via the sitemaps.

Here is my robots.txt file:

User-agent: *
Disallow: /wp-admin/
Disallow: /wp-includes/

Google crawl test says that it will crawl fine with the robot.txt settings yet I am getting error messages above.

WordPress is not set to private and nofollow/noindex is disabled/removed from every page.

I have absolute no idea what is wrong

In regards to video sitemaps, I was wondering if anyone was aware of the/a video sitemap plugin by Yoast. I have read Yoast’s post on it and example he has created or was working on, but have not seen this plugin for his WordPress SEO plugin.

Can anyone lead me to this specific video sitemap plugin?

Thanks,
–Joe

@jyanni: Please start your own thread. It’s considered rude intruding on someone else’s topic.

“Sitemap contains urls which are blocked by robots.txt.”

I am getting the same warnings showing up from my sitemaps, and unfortunately Webmaster Tools does not show the url that the error appears on.

It does however show the first part of the blocked urls, which all appear to be affiliate links (Commission Junction etc).

Examples as follows:

https://www.tqlkg.com/6s79nswkqo9DAGFGFE9BADIHHBG
https://www.awltovhc.com/55108wquiom7B8EDEDC798BGFF9E

I don’t have anything in my Robots.txt that excludes these, as far as I can see, so not sure what is causing the messages.

— Edited to add —

WOT (https://www.mywot.com/en/scorecard/tqlkg.com) does have reports on tqlkg.com (part of Commission Junction) that say it’s listed on Spamcop and hpHosts. Could be that as part of the new Panda updates, Google is blocking certain sites from being indexed, so the warning message is erroneous. Just a theory…

Those URLs shouldn’t be in your sitemap anyway?

I agree, and I can’t see them in there either.
Off to do some more detailed checking.

Problem identified, it’s a tracking image that is used on a link on one of my pages. You can’t see it on the page, but the sitemap generator picks it up.

I removed the image from the page, need to update the link in any case.

Sorry to come in late, but I’m having this problem. The links shown as errors are from CJ but do not appear in my sitemaps AFAICS. Perhaps I’m being a bit thick here, but I’m not sure what you mean by ” You can’t see it on the page, but the sitemap generator picks it up.”

I can’t see why WMT has this problem, as the link is not in the sitemap but on a page in the sitemap. My robots.txt is unexceptional, and I can’t see any rule that would cover this.

Google Webmaster Tools is still flagging these pages, frustrating but I assume it’s not a problem.

Bing however has one of my sites flagged as containing Malware, when Google doesn’t, neither does Sucuri, and I can’t see anything.

Wish I could sort both of these issues out. Meantime, the sitemap generator is great.

Yes, the sitemap generator is working fine. As I don’t make much money from these links I’m tempted just to remove them as the error messages irritate me, but as you rightly say, it would be nice to sort the problem out!