Sitemap Generator Forum

I generated a sitemap yesterday with the new "Automatic Priority" feature, the first time I have used this. After uploading it, Google Webmaster reports a warning "All the URLs in your Sitemap have the same priority". It is a very simple sitemap: there are only three pages at the moment. The sitemap includes the top domain ~.co.uk to which it has given a priority of 1.0 (although this isn't actually a page as such) and then the three (actual) pages, to all of which it has given a priority of 0.8 as you can see in the following:

  <loc>~.co.uk</loc>
  <priority>1.00</priority>

  <loc>~.co.uk/index.html</loc>
  <priority>0.80</priority>

  <loc>~.co.uk/work.html</loc>
  <priority>0.80</priority>

  <loc>~.co.uk/contact.html</loc>
  <priority>0.80</priority>

Looking back at an older generated before the automatic priority feature came along, I can see that the priority is set to 0.5 on all entries, so I don't know why Google didn't complain about this - maybe 0.5 is the default priority. As Google Webmaster explains: "If all URLs have the same priority, Google can't tell which are more important" which is understandable.

But how should I proceed to address this warning - I don't want to have to edit all my sitemaps by hand?

Surely the ~.co.uk and ~.co.uk/index.html should have the same priority as they are essentially the same page?

Thanks for any help!
Regards - Brogden

PS: The web site is www(dot)barnettandshaw(dot)co(dot)uk if anyone wants to take a closer look.

Hello,

the sitemap looks ok, please try to resubmit it to Google and see if that helps.
Also, you can select "None" for priority to disable it from sitemap.

Hi Oleg,

OK I tried resubmitting it with the same result, so then I tried changing the sitemap so that it now has the following priorities:

<loc>~~~~~~~.co.uk</loc>
  <priority>1.00</priority>
<loc>~~~~~~~.co.uk/index.html</loc>
  <priority>1.00</priority>
<loc>~~~~~~~.co.uk/work.html</loc>
  <priority>0.80</priority>
<loc>~~~~~~~.co.uk/contact.html</loc>
  <priority>0.80</priority>

This gives the top domain, the .co.uk, and the index.html page the same priority, because they are the same thing, and then the other two pages priorities of 0.8.

However, Google downloaded the file 15 hours ago and still says "All the URLs in your Sitemap are set to the same priority" which seems to be a bit nuts: after all 1.00 is not the same as 0.80!

I am going to try changing them ALL to different values now to see if I can get to the bottom of this, but I would really like to know what is going on?!?!?

Regards - Brogden

Please let me know your sitemap URL if you still have the problem so that I can check it.

Hi Oleg,

OK I tried changing the priorities so that all pages had different as follows:

<loc>~~~~~~~.co.uk</loc>
  <priority>1.00</priority>
<loc>~~~~~~~.co.uk/index.html</loc>
  <priority>0.90</priority>
<loc>~~~~~~~.co.uk/work.html</loc>
  <priority>0.80</priority>
<loc>~~~~~~~.co.uk/contact.html</loc>
  <priority>0.70</priority>

and now I get no warnings. But I am not much the wiser. What are the rules about pages having the same priority? It would be helpful to know, and even more helpful if the "Automatic Priority" option in the sitemap generator understood them!

The URL of my sitemap is www(dot)barnettandshaw(dot)co(dot)uk/sitemap.xml

Regards - DAvid

Please put the sitemap file that had the issue so that I can reproduce the problem (currently it's hard to tell what was the problem since it's parsed fine).

I'm getting the same error message from Google:

"All the URLs in your Sitemap have the same priority.
All the URLs in your Sitemap are set to the same priority (not the default priority). Priority indicates the importance of a particular URL relative to other URLs on your site, and doesn't impact your site's performance in search results. If all URLs have the same priority, Google can't tell which are more important."

What is your sitemap URL?