Are xml sitemaps a thing of the past?
-
We had an internal debate about the importance of having a sitemap.xml on your website. Basically, there is Google documentation that indicates a sitemap.xml is due diligence: http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=156184
And other authoritative forums, blogposts, etc. which indicate that sitemap creation and maintenance is a waste of your time, e.g. http://webmasters.stackexchange.com/questions/4803/the-sitemap-paradox/
A bigger question is: Are there cases in which not having a sitemap.xml actually became detrimental or risky?
Thanks in advance!
-
As long as you keep it up to date there should only be advantages. I use a free program called GsiteCrawler which runs once a week (automated with task scheduler) so it causes me zero maintenance time and I always have an up to date list of URL's for the search engines.
-
You do want to make sure your sitemap is clean. Bing has stated that if over 1% of your xml sitemap URLs have errors, they'll ignore the entire sitemap.
I do agree with David about the benefits and ability to use it as a diagnostic as well as an aid in getting your content indexed.
-
I don't know that not having one is detrimental or risky, but there are certainly advantages of having an xml sitemap. Not the least of which is being able to submit them to the search engines (Google Webmaster Tools for example) and seeing how well indexed your site is. You can also submit your images via sitemap and see how well indexed they are also.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Our sitemap is not indexed i Google even though it's successfully processed
Hi, Ours is a WP hosted website. We have submitted the XML sitemap with a WP plugin. It's been successfully processed by Google but it's not been indexed in and can't be found in SERP. How to get this indexed? Will there be any low crawling of sitemap as it's not indexed? Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
44 terms dropped out of the top 3 results on google this past week.
Can anyone take a look at the site and offer suggestions as to what I can do. My visibility went from 13% to 2% over the past two months. I had 800 organic terms prior to this now I am falling off a cliff. Have no idea what happened. I just switched over to HTTPS 3 weeks ago and it has helped a little.
Algorithm Updates | | Boodreaux1 -
Sitemaps for landing pages
Good morning MOZ Community, We've been doing some re-vamping recently on our primary sitemap, and it's currently being reindexed by the search engines. We have also been developing landing pages, both for SEO and SEM. Specifically for SEO, the pages are focused on specific, long-tail search terms for a number of our niche areas of focus. Should I, or do I need to be considering a separate sitemap for these? Everything I have read about sitemaps simply indicates that if a site has over 50 thousand pages or so, then you need to split a sitemap. Do I need to worry about a sitemap for landing pages? Or simply add them to our primary sitemap? Thanks in advance for your insights and advice.
Algorithm Updates | | bwaller0 -
Does Bing Support same sitemap for full site, mobile, and images?
We have 1 sitemap for our desktop site, mobile site, and images. This works for Google, but I'm not sure if it's supported by Bing or if they require separate sitemaps. Anyone know?
Algorithm Updates | | YairSpolter0 -
Google Rankings Dropped in Past Few Weeks
Hi All, I work for an online appliance retailer and over the past weeks, we've seen a drop in our google SERPs. This time last year we were ranking in the top 3 for our top converting key terms, but now we are ranking towards the bottom of the first page or even on the top of the second page with the big box stores now dominating for our key terms. Needless to say traffic for these pages has dropped off considerably. We still have quite a bit of traffic coming in for other key terms, but they don't convert as well. Is anyone else seeing the same thing? If so what are you doing to combat this? Do you have any suggestions? Thank you!
Algorithm Updates | | airnwater0 -
More youtube results from the past 2 days
Hi, Did anyone see changes in their serps? There are more youtube videos appearing in the organic results?
Algorithm Updates | | Indexxess0 -
Mobi sites and sitemaps
Hi all, How does should one treat mobi sites which have a separate set of files to the main site - with regards to the sitemap? Doe we tell Google about them?
Algorithm Updates | | gazza7770 -
Is URL appearance defined by crawling or by XML sitemap
I am having a problem developing a sitemap because I have long URLs that are made by zend. They go like this: http://myagingfolks.com/professionals/20661/social-workers/pennsylvania-civi-stanger Because these URL's are long and are fed by Zend when I try to call them all up, to put on the sitemap, the system runs out of memory and crashes. Do you know what part of a search result, in google, say, comes from the URL? Would it be fine for me to submit to google only www.myagingfolks.com/professionals/20661. Does the crawler find that the URL is indeed http://myagingfolks.com/professionals/20661/social-workers/pennsylvania-civi-stanger or does it go with just what the sitemap tells it?
Algorithm Updates | | Jordanrg0