Have you noticed unwanted attachments like images or PDFs in your sitemap & searching for a prominent way to resolve this issue? If yes, then this technical column is dedicated to solving the problem of how to exclude this attachment from sitemap using free and expert solutions.
Additionally, to better understand the problem and the techniques we will also discuss some aspects of this topic. Like what to exclude attachments/images from sitemap means, why it is necessary to exclude unwanted attachments from sitemap, etc. Let us discuss each of these aspects along with the methodologies to resolve the query one by one. Please stay tuned with us till the end of the blog to inhale complete information and solve your query easily.
What Does Remove Attachments/Images from Sitemap Mean?
A sitemap is a file (formally in XML file format) that acts as a directory for search engines. It helps search bots identify and index content on your site. If there is unwanted images or attachments are included in it. The crawl budget might be wasted, leading to important content on your website getting indexed.
Therefore, it is recommended to exclude this attachment for sitemap and boost your SEO performance. Secondly, these unwanted images or attachments might contain some private information that you do not want to index.
Why it is Required to Exclude Unwanted Attachments from Sitemap?
Excluding unwanted attachments or images from sitemaps is beneficial to boost SEO performance. It will help search engines crawl on helpful and well-researched content. In several cases, it is seen that the duplicity of content increases as these images or attachments are present in the sitemap.
Additionally, notice that images from the sitemap are driving traffic to your website from Google search images. Remove such images from the sitemap carefully. In the next section, we are going to discuss the free ways to solve your query.
Manual Ways to Remove Attachments from Sitemap
Different users have different requirements to exclude attachments from the sitemap. Some of them are limited to excluding only specific attachments, while some might exclude all attachments. Therefore, as a freeway, we can edit or sitemap.xml files and remove specific attachments. Secondly, to exclude all attachments and images we can use robots.txt file and disallow folder links.
#Method1 Exclude Specific Attachments Directly from Sitemap XML
- Initially, backup sitemap.xml from root folder in hosting server through FTP client.
- Next, open the sitemap.xml with some text editor like Notepad++.
- Then, use Ctrl+F function to find attachments links need to be excluded.
- After that, remove the entire URL block for the respected attachment URL.
- Finally, save the edited sitemap.xml file and overwrite on the server through FTP.
#Method 2 Directly Block Attachments from Robots TXT
- First, backup the robots.txt file from the root folder of your hosting server with the help of FTP or cPanel.
- Next, open this robots.txt file text editor like Notepad and insert the below mentioned line.
- Disallow: /upload/attachments.pdf, replace the text with your attachment/image location need to exclude.
- Finally, save the edited robots.txt file and overwrite on the server through FTP client or cPanel.
Limitations of Manual Techniques
- Manually editing sitemap.xml is very time-consuming process especially for large websites. It is harder to identify and exclude this attachment from sitemap from thousands of links.
- Wrongly modified robots.txt can block important pages which may arise problem in indexing important pages. Therefore, before editing it you must have proper knowledge about your site structure.
- Users must have proper technical knowledge about robots.txt, sitemap.xml syntax. Additionally, you must have proper experience to use FTP. Here non-technical users might face difficulty.
Expert Solution to Remove Attachments/Images from Sitemap
If your looking for an simple and automated solution that can perform such simple task at the time of creating sitemap for blogger, WordPress, localhost, etc. Then you may use the advanced Sitemap Buddy Sitemap Generator Software. This expert utility comes with exclusive settings to overcome such kind of issues. Let us discuss how to use this utility to overcome the problem.
How to Exclude Images or Attachments from Sitemap? Step-by-Step Guide
- Initially, install and run the expert utility on your local desktop.
- Next, enter the URL of your website in the URL section of the utility.
- Then, go to the settings panel of the tool interface.
- After that, if you want to exclude specific attachment, add it to exclude URLs section.
- Otherwise, simply enter the attachment extension in extensions to exclude from sitemap section.
- Now, click on crawl button and export sitemap XML to your local device.
- Finally, overwrite the newly crafted sitemap.xml to your hosting server root folder.
Better Way to Overcome the Problem Manual Vs Expert Solution
| Criteria | Manual Methods | Expert Solution |
| Ease of Use | Complex | Simple |
| Support & Maintenance | Manual | Dedicated Support |
| SEO Impact | Higher if problem arises | Low |
| Scalability | Low | High |
| Technical Knowledge | Required | Not Required |
Final Thoughts
To wrap up this technical column on the topic of how to exclude this attachment from sitemap. We have described multiple techniques to overcome this issue using both free and expert solutions. However, to better understand about the problem we have discussed some additional concepts. Like exclude this attachment from sitemap meaning and impotence to exclude images, etc. Since the DIY approach have some limitations. Therefore, we have described expert and easy solution to resolve the problem. Finally, we have seen a quick comparison of manual and automatic solutions.
