Is a site map necessary or recommended?

[IsaacH]

We have a website that has been up for the past 4 years without a site map.

Google is indexing it. Do we need a site map? Do you recommend we create one and submit it to goggle and bing?

The site is www.logobids.com

Thank you.

[Mike.Goracke]

A sitemap is like a map with driving directions for Google. Sure they can probably find their way through your site, but with a map they can get through more efficiently and make sure to look at all of your pages.

It is not required for a site to get indexed.

If you entire site is indexed, you don't "need" a sitemap; however, it is good practice to have one.

Say you add a new page and want it to get indexed quickly by Google, you would just update your sitemap and submit it to Google. It alerts them you have made changes and to reindex your site.

If you Google site:logobids.com you can see which of your pages Google has indexed.

Hope this helps.

Mike

[sprynewmedia]

I may get chastised for this but I believe the value of sitemaps is over stated.

All things being equal, I feel they are crutches and band-aids for poor webdesign/production.

Your site should:

• be easily indexed by all engines
• expose all pages with in four-five links of the home page(s)
• utilize thoughtful linking to promote important content in an organic manner
• expose new content on a high value, frequently indexed page (ie the home page) long enough to be found
• be consistent enough that the site will seem similar after one or two passes by Googlebot.

I like sitemaps when big structural changes occur as the sites heal faster.  They're good when a lots of pages are only exposed via a long pagination scheme.  I also use them to break down parts of a site to expose problem areas (IE when a sitemap has 50 links but Google only indexes 25 of them)

But, they can be detrimental if they are not maintained properly. If anything changes in the structure, it should be immediately reflected in the sitemap.  Lots of automated ones don't consider the robot.txt file which can cause problems.

For SEOs, adding a sitemap is an easy way to ensure everything is at least looked at without having to touch the actual site.

Advice: yes, use them but only if you can use them properly or can't fix current indexing issues. Over the long haul however, you should force yourself to think of it as not there.

[EGOL]

I don't have a site map on any of my sites.  Never any problem getting indexed or ranking.  None.

[IsaacH]

Thank you for the responses. It seems like it is something that cant hurt the site or the indexing. The sacrifice is my time, other than that it has nothing but upsides and no downside.

I think we will go forward with creating the site map and submitting to Google.

[sprynewmedia]

A stale or poorly created sitemap can hurt in the following ways:

• long lived 404 pages - deleted pages continue to be indexed if not removed from the sitemap
• use up Google indexing allowance - if 404 and low value pages are included, Googlebot will use up valuable indexing allowance on them vs covering more of your important content.
• links to private areas - depending on how the map is created, the tool may not be smart enough to not include administration or community pages that you don't want in the index.
• inclusion of noindex pages - a couple methods (such as a robot.txt update after a sitemap is created) will include noindex pages which a technical problem. I'm not 100% sure of the impact but I could see this being a quality indicator.
• create distracting work - maintaining sitemaps, particularly semi-manual ones from Xenu etc., suck time better spent improving your indexability or earning back links.

However, all of these are easily avoidable with a solid approach and/or good server side tools.

[gfiedel]

I'm jumping in here with an offshoot question for Mike. (or anyone else with an idea)

You suggest "If you Google site:logobids.com you can see which of your pages Google has indexed."

I just tried that and only 10 out of 40+ pages on our site are coming up. We have both an html site map and an xml site map on our site. There isn't any noindex code on the site other than for blog comments.

Any idea why Google isn't showing them all?

Thanks!!

[sprynewmedia]

This is a strong indicator something is up and deserves deeper investigation.

Perhaps you have content duplication issues, low value content (Panda), spammy back links (Penguin) or other indexing issue.  See if there is a pattern to the missing pages, perhaps one of the directories is the cause.  How old is the site and how is the domain trust/authority coming along?

[NakulGoyal]

It's not needed per se, but then if you have a large website and you think about the user and you want them to be easily able to find sections of your website, it can't hurt to have a HTML sitemap.

As for XML sitemap, the only reason I consider doing them to make sure if there are any issues of indexability, I know. So that I can act on that information and do something. Otherwise for a large scale website with over hundreds and thousands of pages, how'd you know if you have a section of your site not indexed for whatever reasons ?

[SamPenno]

I would say that the sitemap is not needed per say, however, it is good practice to have one, whether it be for client navigation around a site or to assist Google with the root navigation of the website.

From the earlier days in my SEO career I was taught to always incorporate a few standard items as basic procedure as they once you are used to the routine you cannot do any harm if even Google no longer needs then, these were things like sitemap.html, sitemap.xml and robot.txt.

It seems like Google is no longer taking a sitemap for the same purpose as it used to as the technology is advancing, so it now seems like personal preference.

A little bit like the old:

"Which should you do first, On-page SEO or Off-page SEO?" debate.

Hope this helps.

[Mike.Goracke]

Hi Gina,

If you use Google Webmaster Tools you can see how many pages you submitted on your sitemap and how many Google has indexed under Optimization > Sitemaps.

It will also list if you have an issues with your xml sitemap.

Hope this helps.

Mike

[gfiedel]

Hi Mike,

Thanks for the tip. I checked and our .xml sitemap has 55 pages and Google is indexing 53. not sure what the 2 missing pages are or how to find out, but I imagine the difference may have to do with blog archives or something along those lines. At any rate, I'm reassured by this. Thanks again.

Gina