G'day.

I read this article with interest. http://www.smallbusinesssem.com/xml-sit … ever/1193/

I've never taken the trouble to make an XML sitemap and now I find justification for my inaction. Great!

Any discussion?

Regards,
Laurie.

Well in defense of XML site maps… They only take a minute or two to generate. Plus I have done a few “tests” and while the tests appeared to go well, reality was that they failed behind the scenes. If it were not for having an xml site map tied into my G Webmaster tools, I would not have known about the failures until it was too late. Agreeably they shouldn’t be a substitute for crappy site architecture and don’t provide much SEO benefit, but it still can be used as a supplemental guide for crawlers.

If it were not for having an xml site map tied into my G Webmaster tools, I would not have known about the failures until it was too late.

what sort of things showed up to raise the alarm?

Sitemaps was reporting a URL error even though the HTTP headers etc. tested fine. I am surprised G had issues, but then I am not. Nonetheless G demonstrated that they paid a lot of attention to the sitemap, and very quickly.  So one could even question its role as a supplement since it seemed to play overly well with the mechanisms.

I may set up a test domain and test further because I am curious to see what the outcome would have been if I left things as they were.

I think they are great. They help get new sites indexed within hours, and can solidify the SE presence of established sites. I have been using them since they were released about 4 years ago.

Google now also let you submit KML files through sitemaps; this is great for the business I am in now as we have over 8000 products being sold through over 1500 locations around the UK. Thanks to sitemaps and KML files, these now show up in google local and soon to be in google earth!!!!

I have rarely used them as part of the SEO process is ensuring indexation/spider-ability - much like Charles said,if all the other ducks are in a row, no reason to not do so... but certainly not high on the to-do list for me....

Knowing the different kinds of sites y'all are writing about (except for Northie, since I don't know exactly what his work-related sites are like), I'm wondering if they could be different responses because of different types of sites?! Pure guessing obviously, but am wondering if you experts have considered that possibly, and, if so, whicha think in the end? Even, if not, can you see any correlation between site type and results?!

for those who want an XML-sitemap ... http://www.xml-sitemaps.com/

indeed just takes 2 minutes and it won't hurt, but yes, if everything else done right, there shouldn't be a reason to do, then again, it does help to get more pages indexed when submitted to google sitemaps ... (which also means you probably don't have enough links and/or not a good internal linking, otherwise it wouldn't make any difference )

LinkPopularity wrote:

for those who want an XML-sitemap ... http://www.xml-sitemaps.com/

This is the one I use too.

...and as a result of using it, I found (slight) errors on some pages after viewing the auto-generated html sitemap...for example, title tags had been missed, or mispelt.

I know that it's something you should check, but if you have a tool that picks up this stuff easily, then I'm all for it.

Google also picked up that I hadn't chosen my preferred domain prefix (with the www or not) so it prompted me to fix that up too.

ER

...and as a result of using it, I found (slight) errors on some pages after viewing the auto-generated html sitemap...for example, title tags had been missed, or mispelt.

If nothing else, running your site through a generator like that mentioned is worth it for the reason ER points out. Quick, clean plus some even identify pages with dead links

LinkPopularity wrote:

for those who want an XML-sitemap ... http://www.xml-sitemaps.com/

indeed just takes 2 minutes and it won't hurt, but yes, if everything else done right, there shouldn't be a reason to do, then again, it does help to get more pages indexed when submitted to google sitemaps ... (which also means you probably don't have enough links and/or not a good internal linking, otherwise it wouldn't make any difference )

"Indeed" which? The article and Gypsy say they're not worth much time, if you ever get that far. WS says it failed on his. Northie said they do help him. And I was simply confused (but less confused now, because of WS and Elizabeth's responses. Still don't know if there is any correlation between site type and the usefulness, but I'm leaning towards, "no." That, and I have enough trouble with coding to want to skip extra, unnessary problems. ) With that, Link, your post confused me more?! (And, heaven knows, I don't need that. LOL)

@ atwhatcost, the sitemap did not fail, it helped me ID a flaw in one of my tests. I am pro XML Site map

waveshoppe wrote:

@ atwhatcost, the sitemap did not fail, it helped me ID a flaw in one of my tests. I am pro XML Site map

Ohhhhhhhhhh, misread your post (more then once, too. ) So, ummm, Google Site Maps are good for new sites, to do a little cross checking on how your site looks to SEs/making sure your headers and titles are done properly,  and/or after all your other SEO work is done, if you want to?!  Embarassing question, but NOW have I read correctly what everyone has written? If so, looks like I should include one, after I think my site is ready to be published.

atwhatcost to keep things simple, upload the site (make it live) and then go to www.xml-sitemaps.com and generate a sitemap. Then upload the raw sitemap.xml file to the root of your site (there is no need to have a internal link to it).

To see if you did it properly you should be able to add sitemap.xml to the end of your URL and be able to view it online e.g. yoursite.com/sitemap.xml

If you have access to the robots.txt I would also recomend that you add the sitemap URL to your robots.txt file e.g.

User-Agent: *

Allow: /

Disallow: /cgi-bin/

Disallow: /stats/

Disallow: /cgi-image/

Disallow: /webmail/

Sitemap: http://www.luaushirts.com/sitemap.xml

I believe in attending to details whether it be verifying my code for standards compliance, tuning relavency within my content or just paying attention to the things that Google refers to. I don't know the relative value of each but I do feel that ignoring them can't posibly be to my benifit. We have to consider that we have two classes of site visitors. One's human and the other is a web crawler. Both should leave happy.

Hi  Laurie_m,

I think fragos put it well, "we have two classes of site visitors. One's human and the other is a web crawler. Both should leave happy.".

In my experience and with others I've discussed this with (who have done a lot of testing), they find sitemaps to be of benefit to their sites.

Is it overrated?  I don't think so. Search engines like Google recommend having a sitemap in XML format. I'm a big believer in giving the search engines what they want.

I've had sites where pages were not indexed, even though I had a navigation bar on the side that linked to all of my pages. A sitemap fixed this issue and got my pages indexed, sure there are other methods but using an  XML map worked. Now the search engines know I have more relevant content on my site and those pages bring in more traffic.

I would take any article like that with a pinch of salt. I say that because he shows no hard evidence that sitemaps are bad, there was NO TESTING.

Traffic and rankings are something that need to be tested over time.

He says that the sitemap was the cause of his friends blog not receiving as much traffic as it used to. This makes no sense without thorough testing. He even says it himself  "Granted, my experience is purely anecdotal. What happened in this case may not happen in the next case.".

In my experience and many others Sitemaps have not hurt my sites traffic.

Again give the humans and the bots what they want.

Dave

I no longer use an XML sitemap.  When google first came up with the idea, I immediately thought "Oh goodies!" and made a sitemap as quickly as I could to put everything possible in my sitemap.

Then a year later I started getting complaints about people couldn't access my sites at certain times, which when I investigated turned out to be because of google pulling my 120 MB google sitemap - lol

I'm sure a google sitemap has some use, but assuming you've got decent navigation on your site in the first place the xml sitemap is pretty pointless actually.  Aside from the geeky fun of making one, there ultimately isn't any real value in it.

Google won't find anything in your xml sitemap that it will value enough to return a result for that it didn't find with its ordinary spider anyway.

It also won't ensure that a page is indexed. The processes of deciding what gets indexed comes down to factors including freshness, back links, age, type page (informational, links page bla bla)... each engine varies

Point is that because a search engine knows of a page, it doesn't mean it indexes it. A site map (HTML or XML) merely tells the SE about the pages on the site... dats it.

Worth reading: Google Study Shows Use of XML Sitemaps Helps Index Fresh Content Quicker