My CMS Blog pages not being indexed, despite much iggering about.
Is anybody else seeing their CMS pages getting indexed in Google’s Search Console ?
Sitemap (as generated by Elements) contains none of my blog pages
Why not ?
(If I use a third party tool like www.xml-sitemaps.com … then the blog pages will appear)
Surely this is a significant oversight in terms of blogs getting found ?
Hi @jbob
You can create a sitemap for each of your CMS Collections by enabling the sitemap in the Collection settings.
Choose where you want the sitemap generated, and give the file a name. You can then submit that sitemap to search engines for indexing.
Elements will not automatically add your Collection items to the project sitemap, as it’s not aware of the pages being dynamically generated by the CMS.
Hope that makes sense. Do let me know if you need more info 
@jbob Just to clarify this briefly…
If you’re only referring to the blog post listing page of the blog collection, then Ben’s suggested approach should be the right one.
But if, as I suspect (and what would make more sense), you’re actually talking about the individual blog posts themselves, then this is currently not possible using Elements’ CMS blogging in the way you intended.
The reason is that, for individual blog posts, the canonical tag is always set to the main blog listing page. As a result, the individual posts are not being indexed by search engines.
I already raised this issue with Ben in the past, and hopefully it will be added to the to-do list soon.
Thanks Ben, thanks Pegasus !!
(I would expect any sitemaps to be generated by default to /.. )
As suggested by Pegasus - we need Ben’s magic … and I hope he can see it’s important to CMS data being found via google
There is, however, a workaround that I’m currently using. It comes with both advantages and disadvantages — but for my setup, the benefits clearly outweigh the downsides, as it allows me to use my “blogging system” in a more flexible way.
The biggest drawback is that it involves significantly more manual work when creating posts. With this approach, you have to create a separate page for every single blog post, assign an appropriate URL slug, and then link the CMS Markdown frontmatter to that specific page. After that, you need to publish the page each time, of course.
The advantage, however, is that you can place blog content much more flexibly throughout your site, and you also gain far more control over the design and layout of each individual blog post page.
Golly - very clever Pegasus …
… but the key for me will be ease of use (ie. your solution far exceeds my daily neuron allowance)
That’s what I thought. This probably applies to the majority of users. Ben already mentioned that it’s on the to-do list, so I assume there will be a solution for it soon.
I wont take that personally : )
Is this what you see too Pegasus ?
Format appears to be incorrect - Google thinks my sitemap-blog-2.xml file is an HTML file ?
Happy to be wrong .. but I have the same issue with the RSS feed file
It also won’t validate as it identifies as an html file
Are you sure that your sitemap is located there? I was only able to find this one:
I’ve been tinkering - so sorry it’s gone now
But you’re right about the RSS feed file — it doesn’t seem to be 100% correct.
Some blog directories where I’ve submitted my RSS feeds either can’t read it at all, or it doesn’t get updated in the first place.
/blog/blog/feed-peter-yates.xml
and
/blog/blog/sitemap-py-blog.xml
neither the blog sitemap nor the feed will validate - they have a html header
… to validate your CMS sitemap
… to validate your RSS feed
Please let me know if you get either to work
You’ve set it up to publish the sitemap to https://www.peteryates.co.uk/blog/sitemap-py-blog.xml
and the RSS feed to Peter Yates Artist and Architect, 1920-1982 - posts
both of those are working for me
Thanks so much Ben … but something is moderately akimbo here …
1.) the sitemap - when submitted in search console reports 25 errors and specifically states “invalid sitemap” :
2.) the rss file - when submitted in rss advisory board’s validator :
specifically says “not valid” … “It looks like this is a web page, not a feed. I looked for a feed associated with this page, but couldn’t find one. Please enter the address of your feed to validate”.
I’m still having trouble here …
Google search console tells me that he sitemap produced by our CMS is invalid
It tells me that URLS must be full URLS (ie: absolute URLS as opposed the relative URLS)
If I compare this sitemap with the website’s sitemap … I can see that this produces absolute URLs, not relative ones
It appears to pass
Please help - If Google cant see your Blog … then what’s the point in making it ?
