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How Important Is A Site Map For SEO?

by BarryOnline
19 replies
  • SEO
    • |
I've been thinking about adding a site map to my web site as I've heard it's good for SEO.

But how much of a difference dose a site map make?

Are they essential for SEO?

Will my website rank higher if I have one?
#important #map #seo #site
  • Profile picture of the author Steve Razz
    Oddly enough im having that exact issue with Yahoo and have yet to figure it out, but it did happen to me on one of my sites with Google, I was ranking page one and two for about 4 months and poof - gone, I was indexed but the site was no where to be found. I searched this forum and found someone mentioning sitemap errors. When I checked mine, it was filled with errors on every page, something to do with www site vs. non www being listes on the xml. I deleted and re-submitted the sitemap and by next morning I was back on page two.
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  • Profile picture of the author Jordan Kovats
    All other things being equal, a site with a sitemap would outrank one without.
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    • Profile picture of the author miranon
      A Sitemap definitely helps to index your pages faster. Submit the sitemap via google webmaster tools.
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      • Profile picture of the author bgmacaw
        For smaller sites (roughly up to 100-200 pages) with decent navigation, it isn't essential at all. The 'bots will consume the whole site in one go anyway.

        For larger sites (over 1000 pages), it can help get the site indexed quicker and more completely.

        For sites in-between, it depends a lot on the standard navigation, depth of navigation and some other factors. It may not help that much but it wouldn't hurt anything to have it.
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      • Profile picture of the author Spot the Ball
        I never understood this, thinking that if the sitemap page was crawled anyway then why would we need to submit one to google ?

        Is there another reason for this ?

        Originally Posted by miranon View Post

        A Sitemap definitely helps to index your pages faster. Submit the sitemap via google webmaster tools.
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        • Profile picture of the author Emogen
          Originally Posted by Spot the Ball View Post

          I never understood this, thinking that if the sitemap page was crawled anyway then why would we need to submit one to google ?

          Is there another reason for this ?
          XML sitemaps are detected if referenced in the robots.txt file but you will not be able to get sitemap stats in the webmaster tools without submitting the sitemap manually so I suppose that is one good reason to still submit it even if you have added it to your robots file.

          EDIT: Also good for non standard sitemap locations (Joomla XMAP for example)
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          • Profile picture of the author anderson9731
            In my opinion an HTML sitemap is one of the most important tactics you can use to distribute your link juice efficiently within your site. With a great site map you will be able to get search engine crawlers to every page of your website, indexing all of them. If you know about SEO then you understand that the indexing of your site is vital for boosting your page ranking, therefore having a good site map is crucial once you have those crawlers there.
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    • Profile picture of the author paulgl
      Originally Posted by theseoguys View Post

      All other things being equal, a site with a sitemap would outrank one without.
      That's crazy. Makes no sense. And that from the seoguys?
      Voodoo seo.

      Passes link juice? Insanity.

      I don't know where you people get this stuff from.

      A site map serves one purpose. To make google aware of pages
      that are not readily gotten to from the main index page.

      As Bgmacaw says, 1000 pages needs to be broken up. Your links may feel the
      need to go 3 deep or get more obscure as the well gets deeper.

      But I would tweak the linking structure before I worried about a site map.

      Paul
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  • Profile picture of the author Abhinandangarg
    submitted xml Sitemap in Google is a good idea for indexing sites
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  • Profile picture of the author seoweb2000
    yeah it is very important. It tells google where everything is on your site. If you are using wordpress there are several plugin that are really good for that.
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  • Profile picture of the author jazbo
    Its not that vital. However, it takes less than a minute to get one set-up, so why not just do it?
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  • Profile picture of the author ilikepie
    The importance of the sitemap depends on your site:
    - Internal linking and menu structure.
    - Size of your website (amount of pages).
    - Frequency of added new quality content.
    If your website has an excellent linking and menu structure and good backlinks then the importance is very low. How ever I would always add it, just to make sure like an insurance that my URLs are known at the search-engines.
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  • Profile picture of the author pennynickels
    Sitemaps are used by many search engines, not just Google.

    It really helps for deep-linking pages. Before adding a sitemap.xml file to your website or when making changes, make sure it is error-free or else it will be ignored. You can test it in any online xml validator.
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  • Profile picture of the author sax.sunny
    Okay, after reading couple of comments in this thread, I thought let me post this.

    If you have a Blog, based on Wordpress, even if you don't post a sitemap, it's okay at some extent. Cuz Wordpress has Ping option.

    If your website is a website, i.e. HTML, ASP, PHP etc... You've got to have a sitemap for it.

    And here's the reason: Search engine bot only visits your website when you update new contents, and only then, a search engine bot updates the ranking of your website based on your Anchored Keywords.

    So, if you do not submit a Sitemap, Search Engine Bot wouldn't be able to know you have updated new contents, and so, it won't update ranking for your website.

    I hope it is not hard to understand, if it is for anyone, please comment, I'll post an example.
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  • Profile picture of the author pauljyron
    Sitemaps also help in classifying your site content, though search engines are by no means obliged to classify a page as belonging to a particular category or as matching a particular keyword only because you have told them so.
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  • Profile picture of the author DNChamp
    i just wrote a post on it but maybe you guys could help.....................Went live on a new site Thursday morning. Using XML Sitemap Generator for WordPress 3.2.4 and seems to show ok so when I add it to google weblaster it says success bit 0 indexed. i had pages before indxed in minutes and as of now as of today still nothing indexed at all.Amy I doing something wrong OR shouls I use another plug in? What is the usualy time frame to be indexed ina new domain?
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  • Profile picture of the author DigiSumo
    A Sitemap is a great way to communicate with the top search engines and helps get your pages indexed quicker. I add the links into my footer.

    Mark
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