silly.questions   0 #1 Posted March 25, 2019 We have a website in English and French.  We have two sitemaps, .../en/sitemap.xml and .../fr/sitemap.xml. OK. I understand. But then there is a third sitemap - .../404/sitemap.xml.  I have never heard of such a thing.  Can someone explain? Or is the agency that does our website doing something wrong?  Thank you for your help! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites Share this content via...
Ghozer   112 #2 Posted March 25, 2019 it's likely there for web crawlers and search engine indexes / robots etc...  usually the "sitemap.xml" is generated and uploaded for use by search engines to crawl your website, learn where all the pages are and what they are called etc.. it's usually good practice to have them.... have a read here for more info https://www.xml-sitemaps.com/about-sitemaps.html Share this post Link to post Share on other sites Share this content via...
silly.questions   0 #3 Posted March 26, 2019 Hi Ghozer. Thank you as always for your lovely replies and patience with my silly questions. I totally understand why we have sitemaps but I have never seen one located at .../404/sitemap.xml and do not know why it is there. For en and fr yes I understand but why 404? I cannot find anything online about this. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites Share this content via...
alchresearch   214 #4 Posted March 26, 2019 (edited) 404 is the error code for "page not found".  Instead of getting a generic "page not found" screen created by the web browser, yours might be a more friendly page, inviting the user to report the problem.  It can also reassure the user that the problem is more likely the company's than the user's. Edited March 26, 2019 by alchresearch Share this post Link to post Share on other sites Share this content via...
the_bloke   17 #5 Posted March 28, 2019 On 26/03/2019 at 09:40, alchresearch said: 404 is the error code for "page not found".  Instead of getting a generic "page not found" screen created by the web browser, yours might be a more friendly page, inviting the user to report the problem.  It can also reassure the user that the problem is more likely the company's than the user's. This!  Nothing to do with search engines, the site has a custom 404 page that will be shown when a user tries to go to a URL with an endpoint that doesn't exist. This 404 sounds like it has the sitemap code embedded in it, and the xml file is the XML needed to render the sitemap. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites Share this content via...
Ghozer   112 #6 Posted March 28, 2019 Yes it will have a custom 404, but the "sitemap.xml" is not needed for the Custom 404, the Sitemap.xml is for web crawlers and search engines.... as I already said... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites Share this content via...
