Sitemap, a necessity?

H

HJ-Andrew

New member
I would like your opinions regarding Sitemaps. Are they an absolute necessity or can a site be successful without a Sitemap?
 
Sitemaps are in my opinion a mandatory item if for nothing else a search engine. Having all your pages indexed is a priority and a site map tells the search engines where to find the pages.

Do a google search for "google sitemap" and you'll be able to get one generated for free on your site. Upload it to your google webmaster section for your site and you'll see instant results.

Other search engines such as Yahoo and Bing also have sitemap upload areas that are effective.
 
Sitemaps are necessary for large websites or a website that has complex structure. For small websited it is not really necessary, I think.
 
In general, there are two types of sitemaps.
The first type of sitemap is a HTML page listing the pages of your site - often by section - and is meant to help users find the information they need.
While this type of sitemap can help both visitors and search engines navigate your site, it's different from an XML Sitemap that can be submitted to Google using Webmaster Tools.
XML Sitemaps - usually called Sitemaps, with a capital S - are a way for you to give Google information about your site.
 
Great points pacifich and Conor - sitemaps really need to be an intregal part of your online strategy. :)
 
pacifich said:
In general, there are two types of sitemaps.
The first type of sitemap is a HTML page listing the pages of your site - often by section - and is meant to help users find the information they need.
While this type of sitemap can help both visitors and search engines navigate your site, it's different from an XML Sitemap that can be submitted to Google using Webmaster Tools.
XML Sitemaps - usually called Sitemaps, with a capital S - are a way for you to give Google information about your site.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the information.. but i am still bit confused regarding which is more beneficial from SEO point of view.. Is there any other format other than nested structure of sitemaps designs to make it more easily to read??:help:
 
I would say it can't hurt. They are easy to create for small sites, like a web hosting business site. There are many software package/sites out there that will create them too.

Mark
 
You should def create sitemap for both Google and Yahoo/Bing. Go to google webmaster tool page and submit your sitemap. One of the benefits of submitting a sitemap is google tells you how many pages are indexed. This way you can focus on pages that are not being indexed. usually search engines won't index pages they think that are crap esp when it comes to forums.
 
there are 2 types of sitemaps, The ones that visitors to your site use and the ones that the webspiders use. I think both are great but you only need the Webspider one for SEO
 
I think that site maps are very important for the customers that you have checking out your site. You want to make sure that folks can easily find you and what you have on your site. A map helps with this.
 
handsonhosting said:
Sitemaps are in my opinion a mandatory item if for nothing else a search engine. Having all your pages indexed is a priority and a site map tells the search engines where to find the pages.

Do a google search for "google sitemap" and you'll be able to get one generated for free on your site. Upload it to your google webmaster section for your site and you'll see instant results.

Other search engines such as Yahoo and Bing also have sitemap upload areas that are effective.
Click to expand...

I agree completely! If you have a WopdPress site than you can install a plugin "Google XML Sitemaps" which can create a sitemap for you and update it automatically for all pages that you create in the future.
 
Using Site maps are important on websites where:

1)some areas of the website are not available through the brows able interface, or
2)webmasters use rich Ajax, Silverlight, or Flash content that is not normally processed by search engines.

The webmaster can generate a Sitemap containing all accessible URLs on the site and submit it to search engine.
 
Soniya said:
Using Site maps are important on websites where:

1)some areas of the website are not available through the brows able interface, or
2)webmasters use rich Ajax, Silverlight, or Flash content that is not normally processed by search engines.

The webmaster can generate a Sitemap containing all accessible URLs on the site and submit it to search engine.
Click to expand...

I think that sitemaps are always important, especially if you have a new site that is not yet indexed. We all know that search engine robots don't spend a lot of time on new and less important sites, so it is in your best interest to divert robots from stuff like css, js, swf files and to important pages.
 
I think it is essential to have one. I know the frustration I feel when I can't find something that I know is on a site and the link just isn't there. If you have a perfect navigation then it might be okay to not have one but most sites need it.
 
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