Site maps, Is there any benefit?
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I have a relatively simple and small site (60 pages). All of it is crawlable and there is nothing I want non follow.
So, is there any real benefit to a sitemap since Google can get to all the site anyway?
Do they give the site more credence or something because it's there?
I guess as an aside, are there any favorite sites that will generate a site map?
Thanks!
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Don't forget you can add your sitemap to your google / bing etc webmasters accounts.
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Ok, I'm convinced.... I've added sitemaps to my site.
Thanks for the advice regarding standards and the robots.txt file.
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If your adding new content to you site regularly it may get discovered quicker if your site map is bang up to date.
PLus if your going to do a job, you may aswell do it properly.
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If all your pages are not being indexed it would help with that. Also, if your pages are not being re-indexed frequently enough it could be beneficial in this sense. Well I don't know of a study regarding this specifically, I imagine it would be a positive signal that you have one as opposed to not.
This site makes great ones, quickly, easily and free: http://www.xml-sitemaps.com/
When you add it I'd recommend placing it in this standard location: http://www.domain.com/sitemap.xml
Also, add this location in your robots.txt like so:
sitemap: http://www.domain.com/sitemap.xml
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