Looking at Sitemap.xml it contains out of date URL's

[Hugh21]

Looking at my Sitemap.xml it contains out of date URL's and none of my new ones. Looks like its not automatically re-generating the sitemap as I do my updates. Is this possible? How do I remedy it? 

Thanks!

[wmiz · Accepted solution]

Hello Hugh21,

Yes, your Shopify store should automatically update your sitemap.xml file as you make changes to your website. However, sometimes there can be a delay, or there may be a cache issue. Here's what you can do to remedy the situation:

1. Cache issue: Clear your browser's cache and try again. Sometimes the browser saves a copy of your pages for faster loading, and you may be looking at an old version of your sitemap.

2. Give it some time: Shopify's system will update the sitemap automatically, but sometimes it can take a little while (up to 48 hours). If you've recently added new URLs, wait a bit and then check again.

3. Check robots.txt: Ensure that you haven't accidentally blocked search engine access to your sitemap in your robots.txt file.

4. Re-submit your sitemap to search engines: If your sitemap isn't updating, you can manually submit it to Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools. This can help ensure that the search engines are crawling the most recent version of your sitemap.

5. Contact Shopify Support: If you're still not seeing changes, you can reach out to Shopify Support. They can look into whether there's a technical issue that's preventing your sitemap from updating properly.

Lastly, it's always a good idea to make sure your new pages are properly linked within your website. Search engines find new pages by following links from existing pages. So, if your new pages aren't linked anywhere, they might not be discovered and added to the sitemap.

Hope this helps! Let me know if you have any other questions.

Best, Will

[Hugh21]

Thank you, I've always been the impatient type 😊
I'll look again tomorrow. 
(I see a very old collection in the sitemap: something like 'hugh_first_ever_test_collection' that I removed a while back, but on the plus side a couple of the new ones are there).
Any more trouble and I'll contact support, as you suggest.
Thanks!
 

[Hugh21]

wrt the above. I now see what has happened. 

I wanted to rename a collection. I changed its 'title' and all seemed to be good.

However I notice that the URL of the collection in the Search Engine Listing doesn't update, it retains the old name, and this is the URL that is picked up in the site map.  

The URL works fine and still leads to the renamed collection. 

Doesnt seem good from an SEO standpoint though.

So a couple of questions.

- Is there another way to rename a collection other than changing the title? Or do I have to delete and re-create it?

- Should I just go and edit the collection URL manually to reflect the new title? (Wasnt sure if I should do this - perhaps the URL is saved elsewhere in the site, and links might break).

Bottom line is that I do want the sitemap to contain the real names of the collections, and I do want to be free to change collection names as I refine the site.

Happy to edit the URL, if thats the accepted method. 

Thanks!

[Kalen_Jordan]

Running into something similar. The sitemap contains a link to a product that doesn't exist. Not exactly sure when it was deleted but there are 700+ urls in the sitemap that are 404'ing so I suspect this is not a recent change.

[birchr]

At the bottom of the collection page click "Search engine listing".  Edit the URL there, and if desired allow the redirect to be implemented for anyone bookmarking the old URL.