This is for WordPress Sites, but it is Relevant to any CMS that Archives Content?
When deciding whether to include archived pages (such as old blog posts or articles) in your XML sitemap, there are several factors to consider. These pages can grow over time, and if not managed correctly, they may affect your site’s performance and SEO. Let’s break down the pros and cons of including archived pages, whether they might slow down your site, and whether search engines like Google and Bing will bother indexing them.
Table of Contents
1. Will Including Archived Pages Slow Down My Site?
While XML sitemaps themselves do not directly affect your site speed, the crawling process can have an indirect impact. Here’s how:
- Crawl Budget: Search engines like Google and Bing have a crawl budget, which is the number of pages they will crawl on your site during a specific period. If you include a lot of archived pages in your XML sitemap that are not valuable or don’t drive traffic, you could waste your crawl budget, causing more important pages (like newer posts or key product pages) to get crawled less often.
- Server Load: If your site grows very large over time with many archived pages and you don’t optimize the content, this can increase server load, especially if search engines repeatedly crawl these pages. While an XML sitemap doesn’t directly affect this, unnecessary archived pages may trigger more frequent crawls than necessary.
However, the impact on your site’s speed will usually be minimal unless your server performance is already weak, and you have thousands of archived pages being crawled regularly.
2. Should I Include Archived Pages in My Sitemap?
Whether to include archived pages in your XML sitemap depends on the value of those pages and their relevance to your SEO goals:
Include Archived Pages if:
- They’re Still Valuable:
- If your archived pages are still receiving traffic or ranking well for keywords, it’s worth keeping them in your sitemap. For example, evergreen content like guides, tutorials, or case studies could remain relevant and continue to drive traffic long after they were originally published.
- They Contain Valuable Information:
- Pages that continue to offer valuable information and are part of your core content should be indexed, even if they are old. These could include old blog posts or product pages that are still relevant to your audience.
Exclude Archived Pages if:
- Low-Quality or Thin Content:
- If the archived pages are thin, outdated, or low in quality, including them in your sitemap can waste crawl budget and clutter your site’s SEO. Google and Bing might see them as irrelevant content, affecting your site’s overall rankings.
- Duplicate Content:
- Avoid including archived pages that have duplicate content or very little unique value compared to other pages on your site. For instance, old category archives with very little content or posts that are too similar to other pages.
- Non-SEO-Friendly Pages:
- If some of your archived pages are causing duplicate content issues (e.g., a product page that is archived with no updates), you might want to exclude these from the sitemap and apply a noindex tag to prevent them from being crawled and indexed.
3. Will Google and Bing Even Bother Indexing Archived Pages?
The answer depends on the value and structure of the archived pages:
- Google and Bing Are Selective: Both search engines prioritize fresh, valuable content. If archived pages aren’t attracting traffic or engagement, Google and Bing are less likely to give them priority in their indexes, even if they are included in your sitemap.
- Crawl Efficiency: Search engines may still crawl archived pages, but if they’re not deemed important, they could be ignored or crawled less frequently. Including archived pages in your sitemap is more about making sure search engines know they exist, but the final decision on indexing depends on the page’s content and how search engines evaluate its relevance.
- Indexing Older Posts: Archived content that is still relevant to search queries might be indexed. However, outdated or non-relevant content will often be relegated to a lower priority for indexing, which can affect how they rank over time.
4. Best Practices for Handling Archived Pages in Your Sitemap
Here are some steps you can take to make sure your archived pages are either included or excluded in a way that benefits your SEO:
- Noindex Low-Value Archived Pages:
- If certain archived pages are not contributing to your SEO, consider adding the noindex directive to prevent search engines from indexing them. This is especially useful for duplicate content, outdated posts, or pages with very little content.
- Use Paginated Archives:
- For category or tag archives that contain many posts, consider using pagination so search engines don’t try to index all archive pages at once. Only the important archive pages (e.g., category main pages) should be included in the sitemap.
- Consolidate Content:
- If you have a lot of old posts that are no longer relevant, consider updating or redirecting them to more relevant, newer content. This can help you avoid bloating your sitemap with old, irrelevant pages.
- Organize and Prioritize:
- You can create multiple XML sitemaps if you have a large site. Prioritize important pages (like your homepage, category pages, and high-traffic posts) in your primary sitemap and have a separate one for archived content. This ensures that search engines focus on high-priority pages first.
Conclusion: Should You Include Archived Pages?
The decision to include archived pages in your XML sitemap comes down to their SEO value. If the pages are still relevant, contain valuable content, and contribute to your site’s performance, include them in your sitemap. However, for low-value, outdated, or duplicate pages, it’s better to exclude them to avoid wasting crawl budget and potentially harming your SEO.
Ultimately, Google and Bing will decide how often to crawl and index these pages based on their relevance, so it’s crucial to make sure your archived pages continue to serve a purpose and align with your SEO goals.