How to remove /index.html from the root page in sitemap.xml 
Autor: John W.In the software, every page can be added to the sitemap.xml, which is great. Most every page should be. But there is an SEO problem with the home page. By default, the home page is called "index." As most are. And https://www.eclectic-ware.com and https://www.eclectic-ware.com/index.html both will bring you to my home page. But with all the duplicate content worries, it seems having both of these can lead to issues. Thus most of us never promote /index.html at the end of our web address. And in the .htaccess file, we do tell it that the two are the same.
But I am running into a road block with a new SEO company that actually seems to know what they are doing. Yeah, found one. Have found many in the past who didn't have a clue. But now I am working with some guys that do seem to have better answers. And one thing they would really like to see in the sitemap.xml file is the first entry to read as: https://www.eclectic-ware.com BUT NOT AS https://www.eclectic-ware.com/index.html Your software throws the page name in there. How do we get it to not throw the page name of index.html in there?
I could manually override it. But any time I post an update to the website, it would keep automatically overwriting that file. So that is not an option. Can the software get a patch so when it includes the home page in the sitemap.xml, it omits the page name and just posts the domain?
Thanks,
Maybe the moderators or the Incomedia employees can say something about it.
A small question from me: Who says or where is it written that the homepage must be specified in the sitemap.xml file without index.html?
Try editing the bookmark to remove the index.html
see if that works
Autor
Editing what bookmark?
And I fully believe that Google is smart enough to know that xyz.com/ and xyz.com/index.html are the exact same page. So I really do not understand all the hoopla that is being thrown my way. But in the canonical tag, which I have to manually enter on my home page, does not have the /index.html.
Since shorter URL's are better, it just seems that X5 could tell the Sitemap tool to drop any page name for the root domain page and just leave it off. When we tell people to go to our websites, we never tell them to remember to type in /index.html.
Get back to me on my first question, what bookmark? Do you mean a bookmark in a browser (favorites)?
Hi yes in the one you use to select it.
it worked for me, I just removed the /index.html then all good
Autor
Are you referring to changing the text in a page that you bookmark? I am aware, I shorten most of those I save because I do not need everyone's full title text as my bookmark. I have been talking about the X5 software, not browsers. I would just like my sitemap.xml to not have /index.html after the domain name for the home page. That is all I am trying to accomplish.
Hello John,
currently the automatically generated sitemap does include index.html, so the only options available now would be to either work on the sitemap manually, with other tools for example, or to use the automatic one and change that part, which as you mention would however be overwritten.
I will report this so that we than consider adding the option to omit index.html if one so desires, but I cannot say whether this will be implemented and, if so, when, as it will be subject to evaluation.
Eric
Autor
Thanks, Eric.
I did notice that for the blog, even though it's page name is also index, but index.php, the automatic entry into sitemap.xml does NOT inclued index.php. So how is it that one can be omitted, but the home page of the site is not? Look at that code and see if the same trick can be applied to index.html.
My example:
<url>
<loc>https://www.eclectic-ware.com/blog/
<lastmod>2024-05-17</lastmod>
<changefreq>monthly</changefreq>
<priority>0.8</priority>
</url>
Hello John,
I will report this so that it can be considered as a potential change for the sitemap management.
Eric
Autor
Cool.