Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Should I create a menu link for sitemap?
-
Hi guys,
I am new to SEO and I have a question for you guys. We created a sitemap for our website. I was thinking of creating a sitemap link on our homepage. Do you think it's a good idea? Would this help us in terms of ranking improvements? Or would help with anything at all?
Thanks
-
Make sure you're doing this for the right reasons: Don't do this to in an effort to improve rankings; do it because it's it improves the user experience, particularly if the site is sizeable. Adding an HTML version of the sitemap can help users find what they want on your site as quickly as possible. This, will reduce bounce rates and increase time on site, which can be a signal that your site delivers content that is relevant to the user's search (which is Google's primary objective - if they deliver relevant search results, people will continue to use their service). Everything you do to help your visitors find what they are looking for (be that a product or information) as quickly and as painlessly as possible will benefit you directly. Google will reward you for that.
"Provide a sitemap file with links that point to the important pages on your site. Also provide a page with a human-readable list of links to these pages (sometimes called a site index or site map page)."
If it's a large site, you may want to break this down over several pages. - "Limit the number of links on a page to a reasonable number (a few thousand at most)."
I'd be inclined to add a link to this in the footer of the site and/or in an on-site search page.
Source Google Webmaster Guidelines (under Help Google Find Your Pages section): https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/35769?hl=en
Good luck.
-
Hi Ahmet,
If you have very large site then you can place HTML sitemap link on homepage that help user to find any particular seaction of your website. For xml sitemap If you're verified in webmaster tools and submitted a sitemap, then there is no need of that.
Hope this helps.
Thanks
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
-
If my article is reposted on another blog, using re=canonical, does that count as a link back?
Hey all! My company blog is interested in letting another blog repost our article. We would ask them to use "re-canonical" in the mark-up to avoid Google digging through "duplicate" info out there. I was wondering, if the other site does use the "re=canonical", will that appear as a backlink or no? I understand that metrics will flow back to my original URL and not the canonical one, but I am wondering if the repost will additionally show as a backlink. Thanks!
Algorithm Updates | | cmguidry0 -
Ecommerce SEO: Is it bad to link to product/category pages directly from content pages?
Hi ! In Moz' Whiteboard friday video Headline Writing and Title Tag SEO in a Clickbait World, Rand is talking about (among other things) best practices related to linking between search, clickbait and conversion pages. For a client of ours, a cosmetics and make-up retailer, we are planning to build content pages around related keywords, for example video, pictures and text about make-up and fashion in order to best target and capture search traffic related to make-up that is prevalent earlier in the costumer journey. Among other things, we plan to use these content pages to link directly to some of the products. For example a content piece about how to achieve full lashes will to link to particular mascaras and/or the mascara category) Things is, in the Whiteboard video Rand Says:
Algorithm Updates | | Inevo
_"..So your click-bait piece, a lot of times with click-bait pieces they're going to perform worse if you go over and try and link directly to your conversion page, because it looks like you're trying to sell people something. That's not what plays on Facebook, on Twitter, on social media in general. What plays is, "Hey, this is just entertainment, and I can just visit this piece and it's fun and funny and interesting." _ Does this mean linking directly to products pages (or category pages) from content pages is bad? Will Google think that, since we are also trying to sell something with the same piece of content, we do not deserve to rank that well on the content, and won't be considered that relevant for a search query where people are looking for make-up tips and make-up guides? Also.. is there any difference between linking from content to categories vs. products? ..I mean, a category page is not a conversion page the same way a products page is. Looking forward to your answers 🙂0 -
Atom, RSS Feed or XML Sitemap which is better?
Hey Mozers! I'm reaching out to you today because I'm trying to find out more information about Atom & RSS Feed. I'm not sure which my Retail company should use for the sitemap. Atom? RSS? XML?. Why would you choose one more so than the other what are the benifits?
Algorithm Updates | | rpaiva0 -
Has anyone used Capterra and will I get penalized for paid links?
Hello - I'm contemplating buying a directory listing on the software promotion website http://www.capterra.com/ . It's a site that gets quite a bit of traffic for people searching for software products and I was interested in promoting my software product there, but I don't want to ruin our very good standing with Google at this time if Google deems Capterra as selling paid links. I'm not interested in this for links but instead as a good source of referral traffic for my software site. If anyone has used Capterra or has advice on whether Capterra might injure my SERP rankings, I would appreciate it. Thanks, Jeff
Algorithm Updates | | DenverDude0070 -
Submitting Audio Sitemaps?
There are a number of pages on our website where Bands upload their latest tracks so visitors can listen to them. It occurred to me that maybe I am missing a trick and should submit an audio-sitemap.xml to Google. However I can't seem to find any articles about it on Google Help, but know that video and image sitemaps are used. Does anyone know if audio sitemaps can be submitted and if they are of SEO value? Website: http://goo.gl/CN0e5
Algorithm Updates | | Ubique0 -
Sitemap link in footer?? Is it needed
Hi, I know sitemap is important to have as it tells google the pages to crawl. I have an xml sitemap for google to crawl. However, Do I need a sitemap link in footer. Any thoughts?? Does it have any harm if I dont include a sitemap link in footer
Algorithm Updates | | pejman500 -
Excessive internal links. Should I remove the footer links?
Hi guys, I have an ecommerce site selling eco-friendly items online. I ran some on-page optimisation reports from SEOMoz PRO and discovered that I have at least 120 internal links per page. 32 of these are in the footer, designed in part to aid user navigation but perhaps also to have a positive impact on SERPs and SEO in general for the ecommerce site. Will removing these links be beneficial to my search engine rankings, as I will have less than 100 internal links per page? Or is it a major change which may be dangerous for my site rankings? Please help as I'm not sure about this! I've attached an image of the footer links below. I won't be removing the Facebook/Twitter links, just the 3 columns on the left. Thank you, Pravin MAvLe.jpg
Algorithm Updates | | goforgreen0 -
Youtube dofollow link to web site
Is there still a dofollow link back from a youtube channel to your web site? I filled in the site url in the profile, which in my understanding used to be the single dofollow link back to your web site. However, when I view the page source for the youtube channel it shows up as a nofollow link. Also, in OSE the link does not appear. Has this changed or am I just not doing this correctly?
Algorithm Updates | | uwaim20120