SEO Sitemaps: Most important or all?

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  • #1
    Practically every website I've visited uses a different sitemap strategy.

    Recently read an SEO article that said sitemaps (HTML) should only include the most important pages on a website. I have always included ALL pages, and when I add a new page to a website, it goes on the sitemap page.

    My logic is that the sitemap page is often spidered by Googlebot, and it will pick up the new content and hopefully index the new page quicker.

    Some sitemaps include all the web pages on one page, others extend into multiple pages, and I assume this is because many webmasters don't want to post too many links on one page.

    What's your SEO sitemap strategy?

    (that SEO sitemap article came from Google by the way)
     
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    WirralPrinters

    WirralPrinters

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  • #2
    iworkonline said:
    Practically every website I've visited uses a different sitemap strategy.

    Recently read an SEO article that said sitemaps (HTML) should only include the most important pages on a website. I have always included ALL pages, and when I add a new page to a website, it goes on the sitemap page.

    My logic is that the sitemap page is often spidered by Googlebot, and it will pick up the new content and hopefully index the new page quicker.

    Some sitemaps include all the web pages on one page, others extend into multiple pages, and I assume this is because many webmasters don't want to post too many links on one page.

    What's your SEO sitemap strategy?

    (that SEO sitemap article came from Google by the way)
    Click to expand...

    I always add a sitemap - Search engines can see the links - I only add pages not blocked by the robots.txt file.
     
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    WirralPrinters

    WirralPrinters

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  • #7
    MASSEY said:
    You don't need site maps.

    You can add a html one to help users but other than that they arent really needed.
    Click to expand...

    I wouldn't be so sure of that.

    I am a Professional Forum Advisor on another site for business owners using a php script. I know from the threads there, that removing the sitemap link caused a loss in Google page ranking.

    Better safe than sorry, what harm can it do anyway adding one? :)
     
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    WirralPrinters

    WirralPrinters

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  • #9
    Hey,

    I guess this was aimed at MASSEY?

    I advise having one.

    If you have a sitemap link on every page, then you will have internal links also for your site I guess.

    Good for large sites, maybe not doing much on smaller sites but still better to have this than not to.

    I also understand that you mean web page sitemaps (structural layout of your site with links back to any page on your site) and not search engine submitted sitemaps?
     
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    M

    MASSEY

  • #10
    Sitemaps arent needed on smaller sites or larger to be honest. If you have not that many pages then there is no need to have one. Google index the pages and they know they are there.

    Do you set the importance of the pages on your site with the site map?

    Google can work out easily which are the most important pages, very often they are the ones with the most links and the home page etc.

    Your sitemap could be confusing the situation.

    If you delete your site map your rank could even improve.

    They really are just a waste of admin time.

    If your worried about getting a page crawled just create a twitter account and tweet the link. Google will index it of it's own accord but all you can do is bring it to it's attention.

    Delete it . You'll be glad you did.
     
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    G

    glossymagcompany

  • #11
    I have 105 websites and those without sitemaps don't rank so well.

    If using Wordpress, you can control which pages are 'seen' in your sitemap by using Google sitemap plugins.

    You can also enter how often you'd like the page spidered
     
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    unet

    unet

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  • #13
    Massey there is truth in what you say but I would always suggest to clients to include a sitemap. I have experimented with a coupl of sites without sitemaps and saw an increase in traffic and a decrease in another.

    I would however always include one ( also I have many blogs and is handy for spidering )
     
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    WirralPrinters

    WirralPrinters

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  • #15
    MASSEY said:
    Your sitemap could be confusing the situation.

    If you delete your site map your rank could even improve.

    They really are just a waste of admin time. Delete it . You'll be glad you did.
    Click to expand...

    Hi MASSEY,

    Agree with you on some parts and not disagreeing on others.

    Can you explain how removing links from your site increases page ranking?

    Curious more than anything...

    I am always learning :)
     
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    MASSEY

  • #16
    SEOforBusiness said:
    Massey there is truth in what you say but I would always suggest to clients to include a sitemap. I have experimented with a coupl of sites without sitemaps and saw an increase in traffic and a decrease in another.

    I would however always include one ( also I have many blogs and is handy for spidering )
    Click to expand...

    It would be difficult to tell whether or not the site map was the reason. (which it won't have been).

    Maybe the forum mods deleted a few off your profile backlins. :D
     
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    M

    MASSEY

  • #17
    WirralPrinters said:
    Hi MASSEY,

    Agree with you on some parts and not disagreeing on others.

    Can you explain how removing links from your site increases page ranking?

    Curious more than anything...

    I am always learning :)
    Click to expand...

    Thats more with xml site maps. When the xml site map gets generated the map sets all the pages at the same importance. You should edit it before you just drag it into the folder. Most people don't edit it.
     
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    akirk

    akirk

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  • #19
    From Google: http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=156184&from=40318&rd=1

    Sitemaps are particularly helpful if:

    • Your site has dynamic content.
    • Your site has pages that aren't easily discovered by Googlebot during the crawl process-for example, pages featuring rich AJAX or images.
    • Your site is new and has few links to it. (Googlebot crawls the web by following links from one page to another, so if your site isn't well linked, it may be hard for us to discover it.)
    • Your site has a large archive of content pages that are not well linked to each other, or are not linked at all.
    Google doesn't guarantee that we'll crawl or index all of your URLs. However, we use the data in your Sitemap to learn about your site's structure, which will allow us to improve our crawler schedule and do a better job crawling your site in the future. In most cases, webmasters will benefit from Sitemap submission, and in no case will you be penalized for it.


    seems to sum it up neatly ;)

    Alasdair
     
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    MASSEY

  • #21
    akirk said:
    From Google: http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=156184&from=40318&rd=1

    Sitemaps are particularly helpful if:

    • Your site has dynamic content.
    • Your site has pages that aren't easily discovered by Googlebot during the crawl process—for example, pages featuring rich AJAX or images.
    • Your site is new and has few links to it. (Googlebot crawls the web by following links from one page to another, so if your site isn't well linked, it may be hard for us to discover it.)
    • Your site has a large archive of content pages that are not well linked to each other, or are not linked at all.
    Google doesn't guarantee that we'll crawl or index all of your URLs. However, we use the data in your Sitemap to learn about your site's structure, which will allow us to improve our crawler schedule and do a better job crawling your site in the future. In most cases, webmasters will benefit from Sitemap submission, and in no case will you be penalized for it.


    seems to sum it up neatly ;)

    Alasdair
    Click to expand...

    Most sites have discoverable content and good cross linking. Just tweeting the url will get it bought to googles attention if a site owner is that worried. If they don't index it after that then the page must not be worth indexing. Search engines don't have to index everything, if a page has no value in their eyes it will be left out site map or no site map.

    Sitemaps = waste of admin time messing around. ;)
     
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    akirk

    akirk

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  • #23
    MASSEY said:
    Sitemaps = waste of admin time messing around. ;)
    Click to expand...


    depends ;) many cms systems will auto-create them, and submit them - hardly a waste of time...

    on another note though - Bing seems to have a more accurate validation system on sitemaps than Google - I submitted the same site map to both (c. 40,000 links in it ;)) bing spotted a couple of dodgy characters - google accepted it...

    Alasdair
     
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    akirk

    akirk

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  • #25
    sirearl said:
    So can you explain to me why most of the top sites do not use a google sitemap.?:|:)

    Earl
    Click to expand...


    Simple they don't need to ;)

    as the bit I quoted from Google above - it wouldn't harm them if they did, but if they don't need to then they can choose either way...

    Google state that you are not penalised for providing one, what they don't say, but by implication can be read is - if you don't provide one:
    - messed up sites with no logic / etc. etc. may wish they had ;)
    - organised and sell structured and linked sites - no issue

    Alasdair
     
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  • #26
    akirk said:
    Simple they don't need to ;)

    as the bit I quoted from Google above - it wouldn't harm them if they did, but if they don't need to then they can choose either way...

    Google state that you are not penalised for providing one, what they don't say, but by implication can be read is - if you don't provide one:
    - messed up sites with no logic / etc. etc. may wish they had ;)
    - organised and sell structured and linked sites - no issue

    Alasdair
    Click to expand...

    Well Alasdair over many years I have found that having a google sitemap has harmed rankings on many sites,hence I don't use them.

    Earl
     
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    M

    MASSEY

  • #27
    akirk said:
    Simple they don't need to ;)

    as the bit I quoted from Google above - it wouldn't harm them if they did, but if they don't need to then they can choose either way...

    Google state that you are not penalised for providing one, what they don't say, but by implication can be read is - if you don't provide one:
    - messed up sites with no logic / etc. etc. may wish they had ;)
    - organised and sell structured and linked sites - no issue

    Alasdair
    Click to expand...

    I think google are too suggestive about sitemaps. The goal is too save google bandwidth in my opinion.

    And i think my opinion should now be the opinion of everyone who has viewed this thread. :D
     
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  • #28
    sirearl said:
    An HTML site map is nearly always a good idea I suspect there is no problem have 500 links or so on the page if needed,helps google find everything.

    Can't recommend a google sitemap as I found this can be damaging to your rankings.

    Earl
    Click to expand...

    Agree, had the same problem with Google site maps, do it manually now.

    Disagree Site Maps are a waste of time though, they help in multiple ways:

    1) Helps SEO Findability
    2) Helps customer (especially when internal search fails)
    3) Helps webmaster remember where everything is
    4) Helps competitors do research on you (lol)
     
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    A

    AlexMacK

  • #29
    XML sitemaps are easy to deploy with a lot of content management systems and can speed up the rate at which Google and other search engines discover and index your content. I would say they are a must for 99% of websites.

    I do understand what MASSEY is saying - not all sites benefit from the presence of an XML sitemap but I would recommend people try them out before making a judgement either way and should make a final decision based on hard evidence, not anecdotal opinion.

    HTML sitemaps, on the other hand, should not be necessary for most websites. Large and complex websites may need them but the rest should focus on making the site easy to browse. YMMV.
     
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  • #31
    MASSEY said:
    I think google are too suggestive about sitemaps. The goal is too save google bandwidth in my opinion.

    And i think my opinion should now be the opinion of everyone who has viewed this thread. :D
    Click to expand...

    So can you explain what a customer should do if they've looked on the site, treid internal search, and are now looking for the site map? I'd say it's tantamount to bad customer service not to offer a site map, unless of course you employ perfect web content strategy and absolutely everything is in the right place?
     
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  • #32
    AlexMacK said:
    XML sitemaps are easy to deploy with a lot of content management systems and can speed up the rate at which Google and other search engines discover and index your content. I would say they are a must for 99% of websites.
    Click to expand...

    I would say there is absolutely no need for an xml site map if the sites navigation has been built properly in the first place,although this may not apply to certain types of data base driven sites which are difficult for the engines to index,

    And again My experience is that xml site mape can damage your rankings.

    Earl
     
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  • #34
    I'm less experienced with XML sitemaps, having had good and bad experiences with them, but the benefits of having an HTML sitemap far outweigh the drawbacks. While people have their opinions, sitemaps should be used, and I've yet to read substantiated evidence to the contrary.
     
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    C

    CabinLIving

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  • #35
    If xml sitemaps aren't important why do webmaster tools have a sitemap submit? I have over 500 pages on one site most of which are dynamically created from a database and wouldnt hesitate to use a sitemap generator. There are plenty of free tools out there you've just got to find a good one. I've no doubt regular submission after updates speeds up my listing in search results for new content.

    As for html sitemaps I never use them on anyone elses site so havent felt the need to do it on any of mine.
     
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    RadiusBPO

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  • #37
    CabinLIving said:
    If xml sitemaps aren't important why do webmaster tools have a sitemap submit?
    Click to expand...

    From the discussions I remember, and I haven't tested this myself because I respected the opinion of SirEarl, OWG and Ali-v-8 (i think it was you guys talking about it sorry if you weren't or if I missed anyone else out).

    With the XML sitemap you are attributing the weight you think should be placed on all the pages of your site and this overrides some of what Google opinion is.

    Eg naturally in a XML sitemap your long tail pages will probably be given the least importance, Google might think your long tail page is relevant but won't rank you as well because you have told them with your sitemap its not as important as the other pages.

    Indexation wise, submitted XML sitemaps can help a new site get 10000s of pages indexed within days compared to how deep Google naturally goes into a new site or with only a HTML sitemap.


    Hopefully thats right, it was a while when everyone was discussing it.
     
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    MASSEY

  • #38
    iworkonline said:
    So can you explain what a customer should do if they've looked on the site, treid internal search, and are now looking for the site map? I'd say it's tantamount to bad customer service not to offer a site map, unless of course you employ perfect web content strategy and absolutely everything is in the right place?
    Click to expand...

    If you have a huge site then by all means. If you only have a handful of pages then pretty pointless.

    I was telling you they were good for users. You were thinking along the lines of it being good for seo.
     
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    akirk

    akirk

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  • #39
    sirearl said:
    Well Alasdair over many years I have found that having a google sitemap has harmed rankings on many sites,hence I don't use them.

    Earl
    Click to expand...

    okay - interesting...
    so far I have found the opposite to be true, but I guess we probably have dealt with different types of sites...

    I was just going on Google's comments...

    Alasdair
     
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  • #40
    MASSEY said:
    If you have a huge site then by all means. If you only have a handful of pages then pretty pointless.

    I was telling you they were good for users. You were thinking along the lines of it being good for seo.
    Click to expand...

    Useless information! Most sites don't have 5 pages or less. Utterly useless. Sitemaps are good for both SEO and customers, end of story. If you don't use sitemaps then why bother answering the thread? It's about helping people decide the format of sitemaps not discouraging against them.
     
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