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Avatar Posted By: todd 402 days ago
Topic Type: News Story (Jump to http://www.joostdevalk.nl)
Category: Google SEO
Some debate on XML sitemap's.
10 Comments     

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from todd 402 days ago #
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Referenced in the post is another useful link from DaveN: http://www.davidnaylor.co.uk/why-an-xml-sitemap-is-bad.html

from vanessafox 402 days ago #
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One thing to remember is that most people with web sites don't know anything about seo or ranking or supplemental and just want to be indexed. A Sitemap can help search engines know that the pages of these sites -- that may not even have any links -- exist at all.

Also, even for search marketers, I think that a better indicator of what pages of a site may need attention is how those pages rank, not if those pages are supplemental. Supplemental results may tell you that pages could use more links, but that's about it (and as an experienced search marketer, you probably already know which pages could use more links).

The trickier thing is figuring out why the pages don't have many links. Is the information on them not that useful? Do you have dynamic url/canonicalization/duplicate content issues that are splitting the links between multiple urls? Is it just a matter of better visibility for the pages? (etc.)

In any case, going back to it being more important to look at how your pages are ranking than if they're supplemental, there are obviously lots of other factors to consider re: seo than just links, so you might overlook important stuff if you're fixating on supplemental results.

So, trying to find my point again about Sitemaps, if the argument is that by submitting a Sitemap, pages get into the index that otherwise wouldn't, but they end up supplemental, I would counter that this isn't a bad thing. Just don't stop doing all the other things you would normally do just because you've submitted the Sitemap. Particularly for small sites with novice owners, a Sitemap can help kick start the indexing process.

I know that the fear is that once a page is in supplemental, it is hard to get the page out, but I really don't think that's true anymore. So I wouldn't fear it. I'd use it as a starting point.

from todd 402 days ago #
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Yeah, i think having a sitemap is another one of those *best practice* things to do and can't hurt. Interesting point about the dynamic url/canonicalization/duplicate content issue... know of any good posts about this?

from vanessafox 402 days ago #
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I could write one! :)

from dannysullivan 402 days ago #
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Clearly the reason not to use sitemaps is because spelled backwards, it's "spametis." See? Spam.

from todd 402 days ago #
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@ vanessa - hope you find time to write one, I have some theories and thoughts on that, but no personal evidence/research to prove anything just yet...

@ Danny - ah, I see, Google out smarted us... very sneaky of them to sphinn that word...

from ghoch 401 days ago #
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Sitemap Writer Pro is a simple tool that helps you to create and keep up-to-date sitemaps for your websites. A sitemap created with Sitemap Writer Pro allows you to notify search engines, like Yahoo! and Google, about the pages of your website to be crawled. It also informs search engines about the date and frequency of changes occurred in the pages of your website.

Sitemap Writer Pro is a new (professional) edition of a Sitemap Writer. Some methods for opening, importing sitemaps, adding an URLs and fast editing are added into the program.

New tools - FTP manager for uploading sitemaps, search engine notification tool, site crawler for adding an URLs into the sitemap and Yahoo Index viewer.

Sitemap Writer Pro requires Windows 2000/XP/2003 and Microsoft .NET Framework 1.1.

from Sebastian 401 days ago #
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Am I supposed to add links and sales pitches praising my sitemaps tools too?

from todd 401 days ago #
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no, apparently you just have to copy and paste what's on the front page of your website... no need to actually craft a real sales pitch...

from Sebastian 401 days ago #
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@todd LOL ... I can resist :)


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