How can you don't have a sitemap & still rank higher dominantly

9 years ago

Lol... Sitemaps are absolutely not necessary for SEO. Whoever told you they are so important has no clue what they are talking about.

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1 reply

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faizzsheikh

9 years ago

Originally Posted by MikeFriedman

Lol... Sitemaps are absolutely not necessary for SEO. Whoever told you they are so important has no clue what they are talking about.

If sitemap wasn't important why did Google included it in the webmasters tool? and why did Google send you notice for adding a sitemap.

Why is a priority determined in a sitemap for every URL? how does that matter?

Please do your homework and then participate to ans

Thanks
3 replies

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DABK

9 years ago

He did his homework. You did not do yours.

Sitemaps are not important for SEO. That doesn't mean they're not important to Google. Or to other people for other reasons.

Google sent you a notice about adding a sitemap so that you make Google's life easier.

Originally Posted by faizzsheikh

If sitemap wasn't important why did Google included it in the webmasters tool? and why did Google send you notice for adding a sitemap.

Why is a priority determined in a sitemap for every URL? how does that matter?

Please do your homework and then participate to ans

Thanks

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MikeFriedman

9 years ago

Originally Posted by faizzsheikh

If sitemap wasn't important why did Google included it in the webmasters tool? and why did Google send you notice for adding a sitemap.

Why is a priority determined in a sitemap for every URL? how does that matter?

Please do your homework and then participate to ans

Everything you said in your original post about sitemaps is just totally wrong. They are not important at all for rankings.

Now, as Yukon pointed out, there are ways to benefit from having a sitemap, but you do not need one to rank.

As for Google, even John Mueller recently said that you do not need a sitemap.

If Google cannot find/index a page on your site, that means that your site structure sucks.

Do my homework? I have. Unlike others in this forum, I would not comment if I did not know what I was talking about.

Thanks

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nettiapina 9 years ago

Originally Posted by faizzsheikh

Please do your homework and then participate to ans

You know, you should really stop showing that foot that long to your mouth. Unless you want to wipe your ass with your toes or something.
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Links in signature will not help your SEO. Not on this site, and not on any other forum.
Who told me this? An ex Google web spam engineer.

What's your excuse?
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nettiapina

9 years ago

What Mike F. said. If someone puts sitemaps on their list of most important SEO tasks you can safely ignore everything they have to say on the topic. This is a clear sign that they do not understand the most basic things about Google Search.

By adding sitemap.xml you're merely asking Google to consider the pieces of content you've published. They're crawling your site in any case, so unless your site is broken the end result is the same.

Thanks

Signature

Links in signature will not help your SEO. Not on this site, and not on any other forum.
Who told me this? An ex Google web spam engineer.

What's your excuse?

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yukon

Banned 9 years ago

OP is obviously clueless considering his example site has at least one xml sitemap. I don't care enough to look for other sitemaps. Doesn't matter it's on a sub-domain.

hxxp://info.4imprint.com/sitemap.xml

I disagree with folks saying sitemaps aren't useful. Google can use xml sitemap data in the SERP title or description (rel="alternate"). In that example it's not really any different than using a canonical tag.

XML sitemaps can even hoard PR. Doesn't matter If public PR has bit the dust my point is file types (filetype:) aren't strictly confined to typical webpages.

Related thread:

Merging Blog and Website

Examples of xml files with PR:

PR6 = hxxp://golfweek.com/sitemap.xml
PR5 = hxxp://blog.turbotax.intuit.com/sitemap.xml
PR4 = hxxp://guardianlv.com/sitemap.xml
etc...

File types:

Adobe Flash (.swf)
Adobe Portable Document Format (.pdf)
Adobe PostScript (.ps)
Autodesk Design Web Format (.dwf)
Google Earth (.kml, .kmz)
GPS eXchange Format (.gpx)
Hancom Hanword (.hwp)
HTML (.htm, .html, other file extensions)
Microsoft Excel (.xls, .xlsx)
Microsoft PowerPoint (.ppt, .pptx)
Microsoft Word (.doc, .docx)
OpenOffice presentation (.odp)
OpenOffice spreadsheet (.ods)
OpenOffice text (.odt)
Rich Text Format (.rtf, .wri)
Scalable Vector Graphics (.svg)
TeX/LaTeX (.tex)
Text (.txt, .text, other file extensions), including source code in common programming languages:
Basic source code (.bas)
C/C++ source code (.c, .cc, .cpp, .cxx, .h, .hpp)
C# source code (.cs)
Java source code (.java)
Perl source code (.pl)
Python source code (.py)
Wireless Markup Language (.wml, .wap)
XML (.xml)

Thanks

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Synnuh

9 years ago

yukon, given that theory, what's stopping people from hijacking sitemaps?

Not saying anything lol just asking..

Would Google pick up external links in them?

Thanks
1 reply

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yukon Banned 9 years ago

Originally Posted by Synnuh

yukon, given that theory, what's stopping people from hijacking sitemaps?

Not saying anything lol just asking.. Would Google pick up external links in them?

The answer is Yes & No. It's possible & yes it's already happened but you need access to the site.

Before Google said they were cracking down on footer links, a few of the top xml file plugins hosted on Wordpress were banking with followed links inside of WP xml sitemap headers/footers on 10s of thousands of WP sites. Those were actual hyperlinks styled with XSL but the file URLs were still xml files, not .html, .php, etc...

Anyways, you need access to the domain like the sitemap plugin developers so it's not like everyone is going to drop links without the webmaster installing & activating a theme or plugin.
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Synnuh

9 years ago

Right on, yeah I'd assumed access to the sitemap in one way or another. ^_^

So in your opinion having a few high PR (yadda yadda) sitemap links spread throughout your profile couldn't hurt?

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Synnuh

9 years ago

faizz, he said absolutely not important -- as in, not a ranking factor.

If you want advice I wouldn't post stuff like that. Do your research on priority and you'll learn why it matters.

https://support.google.com/webmaster...r/183668?hl=en

Thanks

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patco

9 years ago

If the website has a good structure that allows Google bot to index and crawl every inner page of the website, then the sitemap is not so necessary at all!

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1 reply

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faizzsheikh 9 years ago

Originally Posted by patco

If the website has a good structure that allows Google bot to index and crawl every inner page of the website, then the sitemap is not so necessary at all!

I appreciate your explanation on the topic.

Thank You!
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sparrow

9 years ago

I agree with Mike sitemap not needed to rank at all

back in the day when Google was crawling a sitemap helped the bots get the content to make determinations if you deserved to rank

today nothing holds Google back about crawling if it's to hard to crawl kiss your chance on ranking good bye

these days site lay out is more important for easy crawling than a sitemap

did you check out if your competitor has a higher Domain Authority than you, this could be the reason they rank higher

Ed

Thanks
1 reply

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MikeFriedman

9 years ago

Originally Posted by sparrow

did you check out if your competitor has a higher Domain Authority than you, this could be the reason they rank higher

No, no, no... Don't waste time looking at Domain Authority. It is not why a site is ranking higher than you. It is not a ranking metric.

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2 replies

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paulgl

9 years ago

See, this thread is exactly what I mean about BS SEO.

Judge people by what they post. If they post crap about a
sitemap being used for anything other than what it is, then
they are clueless on that, and probably a lot more "SEO" shtuff.

Google suggests a lot of things. I halfway listen to one fourth of
it.

A sitemap is just an extra avenue for a googlebot. But then,
so is adsense. But I would never say adsense is a ranking factor.

If you actually NEED a sitemap, then your site has structure issues.

I imagine google suggests things to keep webmasters happy, not
them. Webmasters (the WF kind) are a silly lot. They want to
do "something," so they do all sorts of feel good things:

Page speed
https
mobile friendly
meta description, keywords
h1
sitemap
unique content
social bookmarking
keyword density
long article
65 (or is it 70) character title
old domain
outbound links to wikipedia or some other "authority" site
bounce rate
nofollow affiliate links
....
....
.........

Check, check, check....so...um...@!#$%#...why am I not on first page?!?!?!?!?

Paul

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1 reply

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If you were disappointed in your results today, lower your standards tomorrow.

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Synnuh

9 years ago

Originally Posted by paulgl

Check, check, check....so...um...@!#$%#...why am I not on first page?!?!?!?!?

Paul

Your page 3 CTR isn't high enough.

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1 reply

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paulgl

9 years ago

Originally Posted by Synnuh

Your page 3 CTR isn't high enough.

I suppose you don't recognize sarcasm......

That line was the crazies who claim they follow some checklist....worthless
checklist, then come here to complain that they can't understand why
someone who has no checklist is outranking them. Like the OP,
and the rest of the lot of you.

Reread my post:

Originally Posted by paulgl

See, this thread is exactly what I mean about BS SEO.

I imagine google suggests things to keep webmasters happy, not
them. Webmasters (the WF kind) are a silly lot. They want to
do "something," so they do all sorts of feel good things:

Page speed
https
mobile friendly
meta description, keywords
h1
sitemap
unique content
social bookmarking
keyword density
long article
65 (or is it 70) character title
old domain
outbound links to wikipedia or some other "authority" site
bounce rate
nofollow affiliate links
....
....
.........

Check, check, check....so...um...@!#$%#...why am I not on first page?!?!?!?!?

Paul

Paul

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If you were disappointed in your results today, lower your standards tomorrow.

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sparrow 9 years ago

Originally Posted by MikeFriedman

No, no, no... Don't waste time looking at Domain Authority. It is not why a site is ranking higher than you. It is not a ranking metric.

Hey Mike correct again DA is not a ranking metric but is a factor why sites out rank others

I've offered to discuss this with you because this is one of the most overlooked reasons why sites out rank others

the prove is in the data collected over many many years and analyzed

Ed
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- 1 reply
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- nettiapina 9 years ago
  
  Originally Posted by sparrow
  
  Hey Mike correct again DA is not a ranking metric but is a factor why sites out rank others
  
  No, it's not a factor or a reason for something to rank. It's just another 3rd party metric, and has the reputation of being fairly easy to manipulate.
  
  Might work pretty well in some cases such as in this "one glimpse to see what kind of competition you have" scenario that you've brought up in some thread, but if the competition is heavy on spam links the DA might actually lead you to wrong conclusions.
  
  Thanks
  
  Signature
  Links in signature will not help your SEO. Not on this site, and not on any other forum.
  Who told me this? An ex Google web spam engineer.
  
  What's your excuse?
  
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yukon

Banned 9 years ago

The priority on an xml sitemap is basically suggesting to Googlebot when to return to that specific page/URL. It's only a suggestion & it's unique for each webmaster/webpage.

Strong followed backlinks will usually keep Google returning to a webpage. Look at webpages that have a strong backlink profile pointing to the exact URL, they usually get cached & recached daily/hourly.

My point is you can override an xml sitemap priority with regular backlinks.

My earlier comment was basically about hoarding PR/authority. In the higher PR examples (ex: PR6 xml sitemap) they could use that xml sitemap for ranking internal pages If they wanted. Drop a regular backlink inside the xml sitemap header or footer with XSL code the same way the WP plugin developers are doing, only make the link followed.

Really an xml sitemap isn't any different than something like a pdf, it's just a different file type, both can have PR & authority like regular webpages (.html, .php, etc...).

Even a .txt file can have PR/authority, not sure how someone would use that to their advantage but again my point is there's several filetypes that can retain authority because of their exact URL link profile.

Examples:

PR5 = hxxp://extoxnet.orst.edu/tics/b_t.txt
PR5 = hxxp://www.neurophys.wisc.edu/comp/html3.txt
PR5 = hxxp://archives.math.utk.edu/uploading.txt

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How can you don't have a sitemap & still rank higher dominantly

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