Is it Wortwhile to have a HTML site map for a Large Site
-
We are a large, enterprise site with many pages (some on our CMS and some old pages that exist outside our CMS). Every month we submit various an XML site map.
Some pages on our site can no longer be found via following links from one page to another (orphan pages). Some of those pages are important and some not.
Is it worth our while to create a HTML site map? Does any one have any recent stats or blog posts to share, showing how a HTML site map may have benefited a large site.
Many thanks
-
Hi Patrick,
While an HTML site map is one way to add internal links to these pages, it may not be enough to get them to rank for anything (even if they do get back into Google's index thanks to the new links). In addition to the HTML site map, if you choose to build one, I would take a look at these pages and see how they can be better integrated into the main site. What are some user paths that might make sense for people to take to arrive at these pages? Bringing these orphan pages back into the fold will have a higher SEO impact and also increase the likelihood that people find these pages by browsing your site. I know this is a solution that will take more time and effort, so in the short term you might try the HTML site map and see how far that gets you. Good luck!
-
Thanks Keri,
On our enterprise site we have some really good pages that are unfortunately not connected to the rest of the site. I was thinking of the HTML site map as a way to get some connection to those pages. would this be a viable tactic?
-
For an HTML sitemap, you don't necessarily need to include every single page. One example that Ryan Kent often brings up in these conversations is Verizon Wireless's html site map at http://www.verizonwireless.com/b2c/sitemap.jsp. It lists their major categories, you can find where you're going, but it doesn't list every single page on their site.
I have no stats to share about their site, but it is a useful site map if you're browsing the site and not sure where to go for something.
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
-
Technical Site Migration
Hello All- I have been in the SEO industry for about 4 years and feel fairly confident in my technical SEO; however, I am being asked to conduct a migration that is both a platform change (step 1) then a consolidation change (think of combining websites when a company is acquired) all within a 4-5 month time span. I feel like as I begin to create this multi-step checklist I would love to hear of others that have gone through something similar or have resources you could point me to form more of a process/procedure standpoint. Again - I feel confident in the technical output but I have a fairly junior team and want to execute this smoothly. Feel free to add recommendations or ask for clarification if my discussion question doesn't make sense.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Instructure0 -
Best Sitemap for Large Website
i have more than 3500 pages on my website. Please let me know the best sitemap plugin for my website.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Michael.Leonard1 -
Transferring Domain and redirecting old site to new site and Having Issues - Please help
I have just completed a site redesign under a different domain and new wordpress woo commerce platform. The typical protocol is to just submit all the redirects via the .htaccess file on the current site and thereby tell google the new home of all your current pages on the new site so you maintain your link juice. This problem is my current site is hosted with network solutions and they do not allow access to the .htaccess file and there is no way to redirect the pages they say other than a script they can employ to push all pages of the old site to the new home page of the new site. This is of course bad for seo so not a solution. They did mention they could also write a script for the home page to redirect just it to the new home page then place a script of every individual page redirecting each of those. Does this sound like something plausible? Noone at network solutions has really been able to give me a straight answer. That being said i have discussed with a few developers and they mentioned a workaround process to avoid the above: “The only thing I can think of is.. point both domains (www.islesurfboards.com & www.islesurfandsup.com) to the new store, and 301 there? If you kept WooCommerce, Wordpress has plugins to 301 pages. So maybe use A record or CName for the old URL to the new URL/IP, then use htaccess to redirect the old domain to the new domain, then when that comes through to the new store, setup 301's there for pages? Example ... http://www.islesurfboards.com points to http://www.islesurfandsup.com ... then when the site sees http://www.islesurfboards.com, htaccess 301's to http://www.islesurfandsup.com.. then wordpress uses 301 plugin for the pages? Not 100% sure if this is the best way... but might work." Can anyone confirm this process will work or suggest anything else to redirect my current site on network solutions to my new site withe new domain and maintain the redirects and seo power. My domain www.islesurfboards.com has been around for 10 years so dont just want to flush the link juice down the toilet and want to redirect everything correctly.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | isle_surf0 -
What recommendations do you have for the SEO of this site?
Hello, Could you glance at this site and let me know if you see anything we could improve upon? www.nlpca.com A couple of notes: We're over-optimized for the term "NLP" on the home page. We're removing the footer links soon. We have 2 locations: San Francisco, CA and Salt Lake City, UT. Our main keyword is "NLP Training" but we would like to rank higher for the keyword "NLP". Also note that we're completely white hat, but we have international site-wide backlinks, and a couple of site-wide backlinks in site's footers - all friends and colleagues of ours.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BobGW0 -
Temporarily shut down a site
What would be the best way to temporarily shut down a site the right way and not have a negative impact on SEO?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | LibertyTax1 -
Using WP All Import csv import plugin for wordpress to daily update products on large ecommerce site. Category naming and other issues.
We have just got an automated solution working to upload about 4000 products daily to our site. We get a CSV file from the wholesalers server each day and the way they have named products and categories is not ideal. Although most of the products remain the same (don't need to be over written) Some will go out of stock or prices may change etc. Problem is we have no control over the csv file so we need to keep the catagories they have given us. Might be able to create new catgories and have products listed under multiple categories? If anyone has used wp all import or has knoledge in this area please let me know. I have plenty more questions but this should start the ball rolling! Thanks in advance mozzers
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | weebro0 -
Looking for guest blogging sites
Hello, Does anyone have a list or a few good guest blogging sites like Myblogguest.com and guestblogit.com (is this a good on?) where you get a link back in return for a quality post? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BobGW0 -
ReLaunching a very old site
Hi, I am in the process of re-vamping a website that hasn't been touched for years and whose rankings slowly dropped. Any best practice in how to do it making sure that there's not any more loss and - hopefully - it could go back to the old glory? The website is http://www.nlp-world.com Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | pdmonline0