HTML Site Maps - important? [video]

[SEO Lady]

Matt Cutts video tweeted this morning:

New webmaster video: Is it still important to offer HTML site maps for users? http://goo.gl/nLyt

(Yes)

 

[awebapart.com]

Oh dear, it sounds like Matt is now describing HTML sitemaps as a website menu and navigation system, and the website's main menu and navigation system as a HTML sitemap too - that should confuse people.

Websites that have clear and simple "people and search engine friendly" main menu and navigation systems do not need HTML sitemaps. Because if they are essentially the same thing, and they are, it is just adding something that is redundant.

 

[Andy Walpole]

Websites that have clear and simple "people and search engine friendly" main menu and navigation systems do not need HTML sitemaps. Because if they are essentially the same thing, and they are, it is just adding something that is redundant.

They may need to if they want to take accessibility seriously. Using a HTML sitemap is one option in reaching double a WCAG2: http://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG20/quickref/#qr-navigation-mechanisms-mult-loc

 

[awebapart.com]

They may need to if they want to take accessibility seriously. Using a HTML sitemap is one option in reaching double a WCAG2: http://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG20/quickref/#qr-navigation-mechanisms-mult-loc

By all means provide alternative methods of navigation, to provide multiple ways for users to navigate your site, e.g. search, hypertext within content, different classifications of your site (browse products by price, browse products by manufacturer, browse articles by date, browse articles by category), but duplicating exactly the same main navigation system with a html sitemap is not providing an alternative method of navigation, it is just duplicating what's already there.

 

[akirk]

Oh dear, it sounds like Matt is now describing HTML sitemaps as a website menu and navigation system, and the website's main menu and navigation system as a HTML sitemap too - that should confuse people.

Websites that have clear and simple "people and search engine friendly" main menu and navigation systems do not need HTML sitemaps. Because if they are essentially the same thing, and they are, it is just adding something that is redundant.

agree in part

our CMS uses much the same code to build menu / site map / navigation site map / etc.

agree that for many sites this can be just a carbon copy of the menu you are looking at, however, not always - with a more complex site - sites running mini sites within them / multiple menu systems / etc. then it can be useful to have a one place - glance-at map of the website - and this will be different from the menu you are currently using which may just be a subset of the over-all site.

Alasdair

 

[cmcp]

Sitemaps are a superb accessibility tool in their own right and should be provided where possible.

Using screen reading technology, sitemaps are usually easier to navigate an entire website than use the website's main navigation.

It doesn't matter how well a job you think you've done of your navigation; it's different on every site. Sitemaps are generally the same on every site (nested lists) which is a common method to browse a site (browse by list / browse by heading level).

Suggesting a sitemap is redundant is one-dimensional. A sitemap is an alternative method of navigation.

 

[bdw]

duplicating exactly the same main navigation system with a html sitemap is not providing an alternative method of navigation, it is just duplicating what's already there.

This depends on the number of pages on the website. If a small website has say eight pages with common menu links on all pages then I agree that a sitemap is not going to do much good.

OTOH if a site has say 20+ pages then creating a categorised HTML sitemap with a list of these pages reinforces the navigation and it's a good way to help people find their way around a website. I know this to be true in my case because I often use sitemaps on websites. I find them to be a convenient way of navigation and finding what I want.

This assumes that the sitemap provides the necessary reinforcing information required to make it useful. e.g.

http://www.xyzwebsitemakers.co.uk/websiteprices.html
Describes our charges and what you can expect to pay for your website.

 

[awebapart.com]

I know this to be true in my case because I often use sitemaps on websites. I find them to be a convenient way of navigation and finding what I want.

In a lot of cases though, if the sitemap is so useful on a website, this does beg the questions:

1. What is wrong with the website's primary menu and navigation system that users need to resort to the secondary navigation of the sitemap

2. If the sitemap so useful to users, why is it only displayed in a small font link right at the bottom of the page, a link that sends the user off to another page

To some extent these issues are addressed not by traditional HTML sitemaps, but by either improved methods of primary navigation, for example the recent trend of large ecommerce sites having mega menus (which can have their own SEO issues), or alternative methods of navigation like having large footers containing 2 levels of categorised links (e.g. the current BBC homepage).

 

[akirk]

In a lot of cases though, if the sitemap is so useful on a website, this does beg the questions:

1. What is wrong with the website's primary menu and navigation system that users need to resort to the secondary navigation of the sitemap

2. If the sitemap so useful to users, why is it only displayed in a small font link right at the bottom of the page, a link that sends the user off to another page

To some extent these issues are addressed not by traditional HTML sitemaps, but by either improved methods of primary navigation, for example the recent trend of large ecommerce sites having mega menus (which can have their own SEO issues), or alternative methods of navigation like having large footers containing 2 levels of categorised links (e.g. the current BBC homepage).

nothing need be wrong with the primary navigation system - but on a sufficiently large website it offers an alternative - some people will like to see it all laid out in front of them...

who says it is only shown in a small font at the bottom of the page - that may be the case for some websites, but most I have seen will have a page which is the site map - lots of alternatives, like all tools - use as you wish / find most helpful.

It is not possible to generalise and state that site maps are wrong / right, they are a tool which has value in some places / for some people...

Alasdair

 

[cmcp]

It doesn't matter what size the font is to a screen reader.

 

[awebapart.com]

It is not possible to generalise...

Unfortunately, yes I am generalising, and I'm mainly keeping my generalisations aimed at the traditional HTML sitemaps, the ones you see on websites where there is a link at the bottom, and it goes off to either a one page html site with many links, or a multipage sitemap, still with many links.

These html sitemaps are typically autogenerated sitemaps. What I'm also seeing in the SEO community (this thread is in the SEO section of the UKBF site) is a growing trend of the big mass-market SEO companies (same SEO strategy for all clients, XML sitemap, HTML sitemap, add blog, etc) adding HTML sitemaps and XML sitemaps to sites (whether they need them or not, whether they are detrimental or not), all generated by the same tool (e.g. the xml-sitemaps.com tool). And I'm personally not a fan of this practice.

I may be generalising, but I'm not generalising as much as Matt Cutts, which was the main point of my feedback to the OP in my initial post, since Matt is basically saying html sitemaps and main primary web navigation systems are the same thing, which I think is confusing. Matt talks about the sitemap on his blog, but in reality he is talking about Wordpress's main navigation system, there is no HTML sitemap is the traditional sense on Matt's blog (have people actually looked at the OP's video, which is the main topic of this thread). So what Matt is really saying is that having a decent search engine friendly main navigation system is what is important, not a HTML sitemap in the traditional sense.

Unfortunately I can see this confusing video and the resulting scanning over of information, or mis-reading of information or chinese whispers as going only one way. That it is perceived by the general public that their sites must have these really important HTML sitemaps added, otherwise their sites wont rank. And I can see the mass-market SEO companies jumping on the bandwagon reinforcing this myth to sell their services, some SEO companies are already doing this. A similar situation exists with XML sitemaps.

It doesn't matter what size the font is to a screen reader.

I personally do not think that HTML sitemaps in the tradtitional sense are that screen reader friendly:

1. A link right at the bottom - so the blind user has to tab through all the links, listening to all the links being read by the screen reader, before they get to the sitemap link (yes I know Alt-Tab might do the trick in some cases, or shortcuts)

2. A sitemap page with hundreds of links on it, each one being tabbed through and read out by the screen reader before the user reaches the one they want. In these cases a primary hierarchical navigation system (showing a few links at a time, allowing the user to drill down) is more beneficial rather than big sitemap pages with lots of links.

 

[bdw]

It is not possible to generalise and state that site maps are wrong / right, they are a tool which has value in some places / for some people...

I agree but I sense that some others may not.

 

[cmcp]

I personally do not think that HTML sitemaps in the tradtitional sense are that screen reader friendly:

In all honesty have you ever used a screen reader? Have you ever watched a user navigate a website with one?

I'm trying to establish what makes you make that personal judgement. Navigating by heading and unordered list is a great way for a screen reader to jump between sections of content.

From what you say you seem under the impression a user would have to tab through every link on a page and that a sitemap is just a collection of anchor links on a page?

 

[awebapart.com]

In all honesty have you ever used a screen reader?

No, but I have developed the basis for one, to demonstrate in very simple terms the basics of how search engines and screen readers extract text from pages. That code, is designed in a simple example format for learning purposes for a learning to program website, and as such it is by no means a fully fledged screen reader nor search engine spider/indexer, and I make that quite clear on the website.

Have you ever watched a user navigate a website with one?

Not directly, but there are plenty of examples of watching screen readers in action, and the potential issues some websites can cause for screen readers, by looking at videos of screen readers on youtube.

I'm trying to establish what makes you make that personal judgement. Navigating by heading and unordered list is a great way for a screen reader to jump between sections of content.

Again I am generalising, and I have clarified how I am generalising html sitemaps. I am mainly talking about autogenerated html sitemaps that make up a fair percentage of the html sitemaps out there, and especially the ones auto-generated by the SEO companies. Some of these, especially for large sites, do not structure the information in a good way for screen readers, they will simply have top level links like page 1 to page 10, and some of those pages will not be structured at all but just be linear lists of links. Have a look at some of these sitemaps on google.