Google Sitemap

[PMC-312087]

Does adding a Google Sitemap to webmaster tools REALLY help SEO? If so, are there any resources for help creating one?

Here is my site: http://www.petmedicalcenter.com

Thanks,
Brant

[RyanKent]

Adding a Google sitemap MAY help SEO. It is something which I would highly recommend for every site.

Sitemaps can offer the following benefits:

• the allow search engines to see your full site's content. If you have deep content, poor linked content, or any "island" pages, they may not be found without a site map.

• HTML sitemaps help your users find content on your site.

• sitemaps can alert search engines to new content on your site. You can have a 1000 page site and the sitemap would let Google know exactly which pages have been updated since your last crawl.

There is tons of sitemap software out there. One example is from Google:

http://code.google.com/p/googlesitemapgenerator/

[Doc_Sheldon]

I'm of the opinion that an XML sitemap is unnecessary, IF your site navigation is in order. That said, though, we all know how easy it is for a five or ten thousand page ecommerce site's navigation to get out of whack.

The bottom line, I think, is that it costs nothing but a few minutes to build and submit, and it can't do you any harm. Cheap insurance, no?

[KeriMorgret]

You can also see how much of your desired content Google is indexing. in Google Webmaster Tools, you can see that you've submitted 65 pages and 45 pages of those are indexed. You still need to figure out for yourself which are those 20 pages, but you know that there are some things not being indexed.