Webmaster Tools Data Discrepancies/Anomalies

[Dan-Lawrence]

Hi

Im looking in GWT account for a client of mine and see that in the index status area 400+ pages are indexed so all seems ok there! But then in the sitemap area 111 pages have been submitted but only 1 indexed !

Any ideas whats going on here ?

Cheers

Dan

[RyanPurkey]

I would double check the sitemap file to see if it's still accurate or if the site has changed and the URLs in the sitemap no longer correspond to the structure of the site.  My guess is that the root domain is the only one of the 111 that is correctly listed.  Cheers!

[Dan-Lawrence]

thanks Ryan

I will do that , but just to confirm then re the contradictory messages, is that because there are 400+ pages indexed hence showing that info in the index status, BUT in the sitemap there's only the home page showing  because all the other urls in the sitemap have probably changed ?

I had instructed dev to rewrite upper case urls to lowercase and amend the sitemap. If the have done one but not the other could this be the sort of thing causing this discrepancy in the GWT messaging ?

All Best

Dan

[RyanPurkey]

It certainly could. You'd also want dev to use 301 redirection when applying a change like that. The sitemap isn't a hard fast rule for what you want indexed in the search engines, rather an aid to help them crawl your site. If it's in error they'll still be able to crawl and index more than what's listed on the sitemap. Ideally though, your sitemap is an accurate reflection of the pages of your site.

[Dan-Lawrence]

thanks for confirming that Ryan !

So use 301 as the method for 'rewriting' upper to lower case, so the 301 is the rewrite ?

They had told me they had already applied 301's of upper to lower case so i guess its probably just a case of updating the site map urls to resolve this ?

all best

dan

[RyanPurkey]

Yup. Update the site map with your current and accurate URLs and you should be on your way.

[Dan-Lawrence]

Grt thanks !!

Sorry 1 final question since just noticed another related anomaly

The urls have been redirected to lower case for over a month now but the urls showing in ranking reports are mainly still upper case versions, how can that be ?

Cheers

Dan

[RyanPurkey]

Possibly due to 302 vs 301 redirects. Those pages still load. Mozscape didn't update those pages from their previous crawls yet. Fixing the sitemap will help, further internal and external links pointing to the lowercase URL versus the uppercase will help too.

[Dan-Lawrence]

Re: 302 vs 301 do you mean there's a possibility dev rewrote via a 302 instead of a 301 (they had told me used a 301) ?

Re mozscape not updating, I just checked G search results and upper case versions indexed there and last cache date was 12 march

[RyanPurkey]

It's likely they used 301 then if that's what they said. You can check using an HTTP header tool. Uppercase in the Google results is odd as well. You'll want to double check this stuff and get the sitemap changed to help prompt the use of lowercase instead.

[Dan-Lawrence]

the moz bar says they are 301'd so presume so but will double check with dev

i suppose if all definately are 301'd for sure, then just wait and see what haps after the sitemap is updated correctly and then take it from there