Hi
I have created a sitemap as per the instructions and submitted it to Google but get a 404 Error. After reading some posts on here, think I might have a few more problems though such as (www.website/categories.php?cat=1.) I am right in saying that question marks are not good?
Also it is quite a large site with lots of images would it be a good idea to include these or not
I am a complete newbie to these sort of things and getting bogged down by it so if someone could have a look I would really appreciate it
Thanks
Adrian
Many thanks Jim.
Have sent PM, assume it worked.
Kind regards
Adrian
Hello Adrian and welcome to the site!
What is the website address and the location of the sitemap you created? If you want to keep this information private, then just Click on my ID (AMPC) and choose send private message.
Once I have your information I’ll take a look at the sitemap and we’ll go from there.
Best regards,
Jim.
Hello Adrian,
There are a few items I spotted that can help give you an advantage over your competition, one such item are urls.
When I navigate your site (very nice by the way!) and click on Cats, the url I receive is:
Site/categories.php?cat=78 which is considered an unfriendly url. By adding a few rewrite lines to your htaccess file, you can make it friendly so that it reads:
Site/Cats.php
The links, such as
<a href="./" title="Home">Home</a>
I would make
<a href="ht tp: //site/" title="Title of your site">Home</a>
I see that many of your internal links include something like:
Site/./ for the main page (Home). Better to use Site/
or..
Site/./categories.php?cat=1
better to use Site/categories.php?cat=1 (if not using friendly urls).
Search my forum on Absolute urls for more information on absolute vs relative.
Take a look at the competition and see what they are doing. I’ll PM you a few people using the same stuff as you but formatting it differently.
Also, in looking at your site, I found a great way to bring in traffic naturally! Create a few pages (or even a site) around this related topic and you should see some good results over time (there is very little competition out there on this) – I’ll PM you the information as well…
Also – the sitemap file is there, so the only way you can get a 404 is if perhaps you mistyped the name of the file sitemap.xml when you informed google about it.
Hope that helps
Best regards,
Jim.
Cheers once again Jim !! Can we pay you for this stuff
Adrian
Thanks for the offer, but it’s not about the money, it’s about time at this point. Give me more time and I’d be happy to working something out
Feel free to post questions, but please understand I’m stretched real thin and it may be some time before you get a response (although I do my best to respond as soon as possible).
Best regards,
Jim.
You should have a Donation Box !
Cheers
Adrian
Hey Adrian, I like that and I do in fact have a donation page called chia where you can buy me a cup of hot tea
Thanks!
Hi Jim
Many thanks for the speedy reply.
With regards the Google error message. This is what it says
"General HTTP error: 404 not found
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"
As for the unfriendly urls and the other items you have found I would be more than happy for you to post your findings here.
What do you think about including my images in the sitemap, will that give me any advantages or disadvantages.
Once again many thanks for your help and have a great holiday…oops, I mean vacation!
Kind regards
Adrian