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Seems to me that the sitemap does not have to be complete, could contain only your major pages and is especially handy for large sites.
Think of it as a one-off the home page place to put your KEY links to make sure they get indexed. (links that would normally not appear until deeper into your site)
Rob,
do you mean a) an on-site sitemap for visitors or b) a Google xml sitemap?
If a) I think they’re still a good idea. Although your navigation should ensure that every page is accessible (see below) it’s sometimes easier for visitors to find the more obscure parts of your site – the parts you don’t want to link to from your home page. I know I always use a sitemap when I’m trying to find games lists, Ts & Cs, banking info etc on casino sites. You don’t want it to get too much link juice, though, so nofollow it from your home page.
If b) I think it’s less important. I’ve always maintained my xml sitemap but I’ve found lately that Google ignores it and just spiders the site from internal links anyway with the result that some unfinished pages have been indexed before they’ve gone in the sitemap. You can possibly control things like how often it’s spidered by using the ‘changfreq’ parameter but I’m not convinced Google takes any notice of that.
Having said all of that, my site is only about 150 pages so it’s much easier to maintain a site map than if I had 1000+!
Are there disadvantages to having either kind of sitemap?
@Randy 169431 wrote:
Are there disadvantages to having either kind of sitemap?
Other than the hassle of keeping them updated, I can’t think of any.
I remember a friend was having issues getting the bots to crawl his entire site and I mentioned he needed a site map, once he did that the bots found their way all through his site. I think a site map is very important to have.
i am working on my sites now but need some advice :
howe to name the sitemap and how to link it :
sitemap.xml
sitemap.htm – sitemap.html
sitemap.php
/sitemap/index.htm
googlesitemap.xmlwhat is best ?
I use a sitemap.xml, Google reads it on a daily basis so any new pages added are indexed very quickly. Go to Google Webmaster Tools for more info.
This link may help. :wink-wink
Yes, i agree. A sitemap is definitely important.
Especially so when
1) Your site is huge
2) Your site is newBut if your site has been around for quite a while and only several pages, i would not bother. But that’s me….
Hey All and Inspiration and rob3786 specially,
A Google sitemap is important to have on your site. This allows the bots to crawl your site much easier and improves your status with google. There is a quick and easy way to get a google sitemap, once your site is complete and uploaded, visit http://www.xml-sitemaps.com/. Enter your URL and this site will automatically generate a XML sitemap for you. Simply add this to your site directory and sumbit in google webmaster tools.
I’d recommend this for any site from my personal experience. Let me know if you guys need any help.
Hope this helps
Cheers
Duwayne@Duwayne/Playshare 169670 wrote:
Hey All and Inspiration and rob3786 specially,
A Google sitemap is important to have on your site. This allows the bots to crawl your site much easier and improves your status with google. There is a quick and easy way to get a google sitemap, once your site is complete and uploaded, visit http://www.xml-sitemaps.com/. Enter your URL and this site will automatically generate a XML sitemap for you. Simply add this to your site directory and sumbit in google webmaster tools.
I’d recommend this for any site from my personal experience. Let me know if you guys need any help.
Hope this helps
Cheers
DuwayneI used to use the one mentioned above but now I use GsiteCrawler – it will also generate a Yahoo sitemap for Yahoo Site Explorer.
It has some bells and whistles like importing the robots.txt file, scanning google for pages already indexed, will ftp the sitemap if desired and let’s users create/save all the parameters as a project.
