Itqualityassurance
Given the question: What pages are required for the sitemap and what are optional? There is no requirement, only best practice, usefulness and your goals. Short answer: Include all pages.
- Should sitemap contain all pages?
- Do all URLs need to be in a sitemap?
- How many URLs should a sitemap include?
- What should not be in the sitemap?
Should sitemap contain all pages?
XML Sitemap should include only the pages and content you want search engines to perceive as the most important to index and rank. The utility pages, while helpful to site users, are not there to serve search engines.
Do all URLs need to be in a sitemap?
A sitemap helps search engines discover URLs on your site, but it doesn't guarantee that all the items in your sitemap will be crawled and indexed. However, in most cases, your site will benefit from having a sitemap. You might need a sitemap if: Your site is really large.
How many URLs should a sitemap include?
Sitemap files must be UTF-8 encoded, and URLs escaped appropriately. Break up large sitemaps into smaller sitemaps: a sitemap can contain up to 50,000 URLs and must not exceed 50MB uncompressed.
What should not be in the sitemap?
Listing non-indexable pages
Google warns us to only include consistent, fully-qualified URLs in our sitemaps. That means we need to avoid sending Google to non-indexable pages that send confusing signals as to which pages we want Google to crawl and index.
