Sitemaps?

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23
OK, I know you guys can answer this one.

My website (cockapoocrazy dot com) uses Blogger / Blogspot hosting. I just noticed in my Google Webmaster tools that my sitemap was only indexing 26 pages of around 150, which is apparently the norm for Blogspot blogs, to my surprise. That means it was ignoring over 100 of my posts for over a year now!

I submitted a proper XML sitemap, with all pages, to Google. It worked. Still, I know very little about sitemaps, and I had a few questions.

1) Is the sitemap very important and why?
2) Does the sitemap affect search engine results, ranking, or any other SEO factors?
3) Am I likely to notice any difference in traffic, search results, or any other area?
4) Will Google automatically use the sitemap I generated and submitted to crawl permanently, or will I need to upload a new one every post?

Sorry if these questions sound dumb, but my searches on this subject turned up many answers that were contradictory, unclear, etc.
#website design #help a dummy #sitemaps #website help #xml
  • Sitemaps are like roadmaps for search engines. Telling the engines where pages are on your site, they are particularly important if you use javascript or flash for navigation because many search engines have a harder time following those links. You should submit your sitemap to webmaster tools and update it as your site changes.

    HTH
    • [ 1 ] Thanks
    • [1] reply
    • I do use Javascript, and I honestly had no idea. I had never manually updated my sitemap until today. Man, it makes me wonder what other stuff I'm missing...
  • It is best to think of sitemaps as something that can help speed-up indexing of more of your content.
    • [ 1 ] Thanks
    • [1] reply
    • OK, makes sense. So would that content not have shown up in searches without the sitemap? In other words, were over 100 of my pages being ignored because the sitemap did not include them? Or do the search engines eventually get around to them, just not as efficiently or quickly?
      • [2] replies
  • Sitemap simple just a file which contain all page of one website and it help search engines index your site quickly and fully. Dont be stupid to say too much about it!
  • Google site map is the very important for all website. Its helps to index your all pages quickly and site visitors can see the all pages of your sites directly.
  • Well, I submitted it yesterday, but Google has yet to index the pages. Hopefully they will soon, and we'll see how it affects things!
  • According to me XML site map is very important for your online business, sitemap will let people know what your web pages are about. Creating sitemaps is a simple and effective way to give the search engines a list of all the links that you want them to index.
    • [1] reply
    • Thanks. I submitted my new sitemap 3 days ago now, yet it is still pending. I was going to submit a new one frequently (once per week), but if it is going to take several days for each to be accepted, maybe I should only submit once in a while (every few weeks.) Any thoughts on frequency of submission?
  • I only submit about once in 6 months. However I don't add content at the rate that most blogs do.

    I also don't have a problem getting indexed. When I go to webmaster tools to submit the sitemap, there's usually only a page that isn't indexed yet.
    • [ 1 ] Thanks
  • Sitemap is like Index page of any book. If you consider your website a book then your sitemap is index page. If you consider Google crawler a reader of your book, then if Google find the index page then it can easily understand about the book. So, that the reason it is useful.

    No need to keep updating your sitemap. I am not sure how your sitemap is built. There are 2 sitemaps. Google Crawler love RSS sitemap. And RSS sitemap can be automated. So you dont need to update daily. Hope this make sense.
    • [ 1 ] Thanks
  • You should create a specific sitemaps and declare it to google index.
  • Sitemap helps your web pages to index fast in SE.
    Yes ,m you will surely see the difference in traffic after uploading sitemap.
    • [ 1 ] Thanks
  • Well, it has been indexed now. Hopefully the traffic improvement will come quickly. I'll post back, to inform you all what difference (if any) I see. Least I can do! Thanks everyone.
  • Banned
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  • Google can crawl page without sitemap but sitemap help them to drive straight to your high priority and low priority pages and tell search engine that your website have these pages to index.
    • [1] reply
    • you can see all your website page link in one page, and sitemap also help to search engine to index website easily.

      Thanks
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    Sitemaps?

    OK, I know you guys can answer this one. My website (cockapoocrazy dot com) uses Blogger / Blogspot hosting. I just noticed in my Google Webmaster tools that my sitemap was only indexing 26 pages of around 150, which is apparently the norm for Blogspot blogs, to my surprise. That means it was ignoring over 100 of my posts for over a year now!