Is a Sitemap Required?

by 39 replies
47
Hi All,
I have just gone into business with a friend (bricks n mortar business) and our website is brand new and yet to get Indexed.
I see everyone recommends submitting the Sitemap to Google.
Now for some reason our Webdesigner did not do a Sitemap as they were not doing the SEO.

I asked them to do one for us, and they are going to charge us.

Is a Sitemap necessary? Do we need one for SEO or will the Site get picked up with other means?

Just seems strange we are being charged...I thought it would have been included.

Anyway, would love to hear your thoughts.
Cheers
#search engine optimization #required #sitemap
  • Sitemap is not necessary, but it would be good if you add one. It will increase chances of indexing. If your web designer is charging you extra, then I suggest you to create it using a free xml sitemap generator. There are so many sitemap generator tools are available. I hope it will help.
    • [ 1 ] Thanks
  • Ok Thanks for the information.
    Much appreciated
  • Hi Micheal,

    You have two types of sitemaps for websites and XML and HTML sitemap. You can get charged for HTML sitemap but the other variant ie the XML sitemap is something that you can create by yourself as suggested by satvik, Search engines essentially look for XML sitemaps when it comes to indexing your site. therefore, i believe that an XML sitemap is ideal or must.
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  • If you ask me, I will say it's necessary not mainly for SEO but for your visitors as well.

    Sitemap is like the directions on the street in a city.

    If you have a wordpress site you could opt for XML by adding a plugin.

    It's so simple, search for videos and information of how to get it done in minutes.
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  • Quite necessary I'm afraid, but you can create it yourself. Use this website, it can create an XML sitemap for your website easily.
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  • Yes sitemap is necessary for the visitors to understand about Site. Where to see what and where to find the info we are looking.
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  • Sitemap is like the directions on the street in a city.
    You have two types of sitemaps for websites and XML and HTML sitemap.
    Yes sitemap is necessary for the visitors to understand about Site. Where to see what and where to find the info we are looking.
    • [ 1 ] Thanks
  • There are two Types of sitemaps:

    -- Sitemap For users (HTML SITEMAP)
    -- Sitemap For Crawlers (XML SITEMAP)

    => XML sitemap is very important for better indexing of our website. You can submit you XML sitemap by verifying you website on Google Webmasters.

    => Html Sitemap - If is Basically for website visitors and our pages, Posts, categories and listed in this Sitemap Page.
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  • You don't need a sitemap, as long as Google can find all the pages you want indexing via your internal link structure it will find them.

    An XML sitemap submited to Google using Google Webmaster Tools will give Google another way to find your pages quickly, if the XML sitemap is well formed it will inform Google which pages have been recently published/updated and could speed up indexing and respidering.

    So an XML sitemap submitted to Google could speed up spidering, but it won't impact rankings. You won't have SERP move from number 8 to number 7 because you have a sitemap.

    So you don't need a sitemap.

    An HTML sitemap is just another webpage with your sites links on, Google won't index that page or links from it any faster than any other webpage with links on. This will have little to no direct SEO value to Google, if you think it's useful to you or users consider adding one.

    David
    • [ 1 ] Thanks
  • Thanks again guys, you have all helped.
    Generally speaking, how long does it take for a site to get indexed?
    Ours was only uploaded last week, but so far it doesn't come up in the search. The URL in question is in my signature below.
    Cheers
    Oh yeah, getting a Sitemap done today
    • [1] reply
    • You are mixing up indexing with ranking.

      This search shows your site is indexed

      https://www.google.com/search?q=XYZ#...ions.com.au%2F

      If those 7 indexed pages are your entire site, what SERPs do you think they should be ranked for?

      Looking at your 7 pages title tags you only have one webpage (the home page) targeting any SERPs and the only SERP targeted is

      Adelaide Business Solutions

      And even then the on-site SEO isn't very good.

      So you pretty much target one phrase on the entire site. How can Google rank your site for other relevant phrases?

      Go do keyword research (Google Adwords Planner Tool, it's free), optimize all the important pages for at least one SERP each, if you want more traffic add more webpages targeting relevant SERPs.

      Do the same site: search on my domain and note I have thousands of pages indexed (pop the line below in a Google search).

      site:stallion-theme.co.uk

      Look at the titles, those are the phrases I'd like to gain traffic for. If you don't have a webpage targeting a SERP how do you expect to rank for it? I won't get most of them, but if I don't try (like your site), won't get any of them.

      David
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  • Sitemap is not that much essential but if you submit sitemap it would be better for you. In future if you want to change your indexing, it will help you. You can simply create XML site map without paying but for HTML sitemap you need to pay.
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  • BTW for a 7 page website you don't need a sitemap :-)

    David
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  • Thanks David,
    Still getting my head around this.
    So this has nothing to do with the keywords inserted in the site?
    So I need to change the titles of those 7 pages?
    Cheers
    • [1] reply
    • Do you mean the meta keywords tag set of keywords you have?

      Code:
      <meta name="keyword" content="Adelaide Business Solutions, business consulting, management consulting, business consultant, recruiting, Adelaide recruitment, small business advice, business support, business advice, Adelaide business consultant, Adelaide business coaching, financial management consulting, Adelaide business consultants,  Human resources, business consultants Adelaide" />
      I'm afraid I have some bad news, Google completely ignore the keywords added in the meta keywords tag, complete waste of time. Those who understand SEO no longer waste their time on the meta keywords tag: I've not used it for well over 10 years, it's that long since it was important.

      If you want a SERP like "Adelaide business coaching" you will need to build a new webpage give it the title tag "Adelaide Business Coaching". Add content to the webpage related to Adelaide business coaching and related phrases, internally link to that new page from other parts of the site with the link having anchor text including "Adelaide business coaching".

      This is basic SEO 101 (it's not hard), go to my SEO site (link in sig) and read my SEO tutorials, you are WAY off on your SEO understanding right now and have a lot to learn.

      Your new home page title tag for example is a disaster. You do not add a list of keywords like this in the title tag:

      Code:
      <title>Adelaide Business Solutions, small business consulting, business consulting, management consulting, business consultant, recruiting, Adelaide recruitment, small business advice, business support,  Adelaide business consultant</title>
      That is awful and spammy. Don't try to take shortcuts (BTW that one doesn't work), you don't know enough about SEO to take shortcuts, stick to lots of high quality content and backlink building.

      As you don't know what you are doing your home page title tag should target a single keyword phrase like:

      Adelaide Business Solutions

      Go do keyword research using the free Google AdWords account https://adwords.google.com/ and use their keyword research tool (for free) to find what phrases your potential customers are looking for. I have no idea if Adelaide Business Solutions is a good phrase to target, you need to do the research to know where the traffic is.

      Now target the home page content at that and related phrases (do keyword research), that means add text content, images... about Adelaide Business Solutions, Adelaide Small Business Solutions (a related phrase), Adelaide Business Advice (a related phrase) etc...

      Want more SERPs, build more webpages targeting them. Did I mention keyword research :-)

      Work on backlinks to power your sites on-site SEO.

      David
      • [ 1 ] Thanks
  • Aha..Found where to edit the Title..Now it's making sense.
    Thanks again David
  • [DELETED]
  • After several web design courses, I follow a strict work process with new websites and one of those tasks includes submitting a sitemap. I've also found it useful.
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  • [DELETED]
  • To those who says a sitemap is needed, could you explain why with over 100 domains that make me a crap load of money, why only one of the domains has an XML sitemap submitted to Google and yet all my traffic is organic?

    It's because they aren't NEEDED, they are optional and might (not will), might speed up site spidering by Google, but will not increase SERPs per se.

    From an SEO perspective they are very low priority. All webpages on a site should be spiderable without a sitemap.

    There is even an argument having a sitemap hides link structure issues on a site, if parts of a site don't have enough links to keep them indexed without a sitemap they won't rank for anything (no traffic), as the website owner you need this valuable information so you can add more links.

    A sitemap papers over an SEO failing in your links structure. I would never use a sitemap for indexing reasons, make sure Google has no problems indexing everything regularly before using a sitemap. If you are sure there are no link structure issues a sitemap can speed up spidering.

    David
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  • Michael, Sitemap is not included in every site, but it would be good if you will have one. Sitemap increases chances of indexing. Also, it is good for user experience perspective.

    Moreover, I don't think they should charge you for this. There are many sites available online from where you can generate free sitemaps like xml sitemap generator.
    • [ 1 ] Thanks
  • Thanks again for all of your replies.
    Cheers David for your explanation...I will edit those things tomorrow and go from there.
    Your insights are greatly appreciated.
    • [1] reply
    • Yes sitemaps are important, and you should have one, they are easy to create and free and should take you around 5 minutes to do

      remember if you decide to create a sitemap, upload it to google webmaster tools if you have an account, if not then create one, its free aswell

      if you need any further help, feel free to contact me, would be glad to help


      Bertie
      • [ 1 ] Thanks
      • [1] reply
  • A sitemap is like a road map. There are two types of sitemaps, HTML and XML. There are several ways to create an sitemap. You can get many free sites in the web which are helps you to create sitemap.
  • Banned
    Yes, of course site map is always needed because without it spider needs to find thing by itself its like a address book where all you information is available at the one page and spiders don't need to search for them individually they read out the page loud and all done ! So, its always needed ...
  • If you have a well structured site then you won't need a sitemap whether its XML or HTML. But, if you want to index your webpages faster you have to add it.
  • As per your description site map is most important for google spider because once your site is crawling than google spider check your website page by page like Home page , product page , sub page if google spider don't get site map in site than you can get the error in webmaster tools
  • Sitemap is good to have, but not essential nor necessary. I saw many big websites without sitemap.
  • yes , if you add sitemap, it increase the chance of crawling & indexing.so i think sitemap should be add.
  • Sitemaps are very important for telling google what can be indexed and not, they are most important for websites that are very large.
  • Banned
    Site map plays a key role in indexing for google without using it the appearance of your website is difficult and their are many free sitemap creating sites follow it.
  • A sitemap is simply a list of your pages in a single page layout. When a visitor goes to your site they can access the sitemap to find any pages that they are interested in viewing. Usually the sitemap is to benefit the people who visit your site and give them a quick and easy way to navigate your site.

    A sitemap has a benefit for the search engines as well. This sitemap will let the Google robot see how pages, such as those in the fourth and fifth level, fit into your site. If you link to your sitemap page from your homepage, all of the pages listed in your sitemap will be no farther from your home page than the third level. This will encourage Google to index your entire site.
  • Yes, Sitemap is necessary for website.

    Sitemap is the best way to tell search engine about websites all pages. All search engines give prefer to your site, if your website pages are properly linked together. So its necessary to create sitemap of your website.
    XML sitemap is easily understandable by search engines.
    • [1] reply
  • It is always a good idea to have a sitemap, it allows search engine's and other websites to easily see all your pages in one place.

    Once you have your sitemap, you should submit this to Google using Google's webmaster tools, and also Bing (links in the post above).

    Using Google Webmaster tools, you can see which pages have been indexed in Google (from your sitemap) using their graph. You should have all of your pages indexed, if only 50% of them are indexed, you know you have some work to do on those pages.
  • two types of sitemaps for websites and XML and HTML sitemap.Site map plays a key role in indexing for google without using it the appearance of your website
  • This is all really interesting and informative!
    I was always under the impression that you NEEDED a Sitemap to be indexed by Google and other engines.
    I'd still have one, I like looking at them to navigate through sites sometimes!
  • Adding a sitemap is required for any website really. Although Google can crawl and index your website without a sitemap, it is always good to include one to speed up the crawl rate and to ensure that other search engines can crawl your website easily and on time.

    Adding a sitemap is really easy and it must not take you more than 10 minutes to create one. There are many web tools and plugins as well that does this job for you automatically and for free.

    Make sure as well to submit your sitemap to Google Webmaster Tools and Bing Webmaster Tools for best results.

    Hope that helps!
  • Yes sitemap is necessary. The sitemaps protocol allows a webmaster to inform search engines about URLs on a website that are available fir crawling. It allows webmasters to include additional information about each URL: when it was last updated, how often it changes and how important it is in relation to other URLs in the site.
  • Yes, google uses sitemaps to index your site. You should use google webmaster tools to tell google where your sitemap is. In all actuality, you can fire your webmaster and use wordpress
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