Sort term product pages and fast indexing - XML sitemaps be updated daily, weekly, etc?

[Carla_Dawson]

Hi everyone,

I am currently working on a website that the XML sitemap is set to update weekly. Our client has requested that this be changed to daily. The real issue is that the website creates short term product pages (10-20 days) and then the product page URL's go 404. So the real problem is quick indexing not daily vs weekly sitemap. I suspect that daily vs weekly sitemaps may help solve the indexing time but does not completely solve the problem.

So my question for you is how can I improve indexing time on this project? The real problem is how to get the product pages indexed and ranking before the 404 page shows u?. .

Here are some of my initial thoughts and background on the project.

• Product pages are only available for 10 to 20 days (Auction site).Once the auction on the product ends the URL goes 404.
• If the pages only exist for 10 to 20 days (404 shows up when the auction is over), this sucks for SEO for several reasons (BTW I was called onto the project as the SEO specialist after the project and site were completed). Reason 1 - It is highly unlikely that the product pages will rank (positions 1 -5) since the site has a very low Domain Authority) and by the time Google indexes the link the auction is over therefore the user sees a 404. Possible solution 1 - all products have authorship from a "trustworthy" author therefore the indexing time improves. Possible solution 2 - Incorporate G+ posts for each product to improve indexing time. There is still a ranking issue here since the site has a low DA. The product might appear but at the bottom of page 2 or 1..etc. Any other ideas?
• From what I understand, even though sitemaps are fed to Google on a weekly or daily basis this does not mean that Google indexes them right away (please confirm). Best case scenario - Google indexes the links every day (totally unrealistic in my opinion), URL shows up on page 1 or 2 of Google and slowly start to move up. By the time the product ranks in the first 5 positions the auction is over and therefore the user sees a 404.
• I do think that a sitemap updated daily is better for this project than weekly but I would like to hear the communities opinion.

Thanks

[DJ123]

1. You are correct, generally, Google will index when it makes sense for them to do so per their algorithms.  It is not in my experience driven by the time on the XML sitemap.  It could be loosely correlated, but not huge.

2. You should setup up 301 redirects on the auctions that have ended.  Don't 404 them, that is bad.  Redirect them to a page for new related auctions (probably will require some code to be whipped up).

3. You could try to utilize webmaster tools Fetch as Google to get the pages indexed, however, this is manual, not guaranteed that Google will index it and you only have so many requests available.

4. Spend some more time on getting organic links via articles and other content in the niche.  This will help on a number of levels not only in ranking but also attracting traffic from people interested in the product/market.