My site was smashed - Google's sitemap.xml angle

I have three main sites I do seo work for but only one was horribly affected, the other two not at all. After reading the below post in another forum I realized that the only site that I use a Google sitemap (sitemap.xml) for is the one that got whacked in the last couple of days.

Here's the post:

Also, it seems like a lot of sites that are really seo'd are getting hammered the worst, and it makes sense that people who really seo their sites are up on Google suggesting we use a sitemap.xml

I would like to know if anyone else has noticed this? Does anyone else have more than one site where some use google sitemaps and others don't so we could compare?

 

i have never used a google sitemap, but got hit real bad, so dont think its that

 

I do not think it has anything to do with it. It's like saying you flip a coin twice and get heads therefore tails does not exsist.

 

Just because someone throws out another unsubstantiated theory (which I have seen at least 50 over the last week), doesn't mean it should be given any creedence or validity.

I have the color blue on all the sites of mine that have been effected. Yet I have failed to credit that factor to problems with google.

 

Dude, just trying to see what was happening with other people, nothing more, I don't give it any creedence or any clearwater revival, just was wondering.

 

my serps are all whacked too - all but 2 KW are off the radar, but I've never done the google sitemap thingy.

 

google sitemaps are meant to improve the index of google not to spot seos. I have 2 sites using sitemaps and I see nothing wrong with that. they keep on improving in the serps, but that's normal as more BLs are taken into account every day.

use google sitemaps they are awesome to index your pages. they really speed up the indexing process

 

No problem with my sites and I did do the sitemap - have done it for a while. Did not assign priorities to most pages though.

 

yes.. what's up with that? i'm seeing the same thing for the effected sites. also, anything i've optimized locally is having some issues

 

I tried to create one but couldn't even figure the instructions

I'm just waiting patiently in the hope it all returns back to normal soon. Our visitors are down over 40% and sales are rock bottom. It's our livelihood, so I can only hope it's just a temporary blip!

 

I have a sitemap.xml and have greatly benefitted by the recent changes.

 

I understand that.. everyone is trying to understand what is happening.. but throwing up unsubstantiated theory after another doesn't help. I have read at least 100 different theories in the last two weeks and 99% of them have not been supported by any actual evidence or foundation.

I would suggest that while it is fine to have theories and speculation, until you actually do some work to try and determine if there is ANY validity to what you are suggesting... Otherwise we are just all spinning our wheels.

We could spend the next 10 years creating alleged theories, but that does not mean ANY of them would be true. So we all need to go through a bit of self-editing, and determine what is and what is not a possible issue.

Look at McDar's posts here. He provides evidence along with his speculation. Even if his theories and suggestions turn out incorrect, at least we know he spent some time considering them and debunking them himself before just posting them up for public consumption.

All you did was post a hair-trigger thought someone else had... The original person who suggested it doesn't appear to done anything to prove or disprove it, and you just reposted it like it was some kind of realistic possibility, with no evidence or support.

Just suggesting a little more due diligence in the future when suggesting theories and possibilities.. Unless you clearly disclaim that it is just a passing thought.

 

I m running a google sitemap , n for some reason it says the sitemap is dloaded every 2 hours which seems to have increased but googles cache of my site is 23 rd of sept?? also nvr had a bot near which is strange according to the reasoning behind sitemaps ... completely confused am i still sandboxed or being penalized also the sitemap is showing error onpages that dnt exist or are listed in the sitemap please shed some light pleassseeee...

thanks

 

I got some heavy drops on keywords, and I have a sitemap that is just a list of urls separated by newline. What's funny is, I don't really fault google for the drops. I think I was artificially up on those keywords anyway. I mean, it's not something I'd wish for, but if google can tell those keywords don't exactly fit, or if they aren't matching user's queries, good for them.

 

I think it's pretty unlikely that Google would roll out an entire product with the specific intention of targeting the kind of people that would use it...

 

I don't agree with this really - I have a few sites that were fairly new and I thought adding Google sitemaps would give them a kickstart, it did just that.

Different sites and structures from wordpress to drupal, sitemap is auto regenerated upon a new wordpress post and its worked a treat.

Since I added G sitemaps I have had increases in pages indexed from:
2k->85k
1.5k->10k
1k->20k

Now this could also be a coincidence, but from my experience across 3 sites I have only seen positive.

Also when you say your site got whacked what do you actually mean, a loss in actual rankings/large reduction in indexed pages, or both?

 

I have a few sites, and the one WITH sitemap didn't get "whacked"...

 

I had a website that stayed completely static for 6 months.
Basically, I had around 1,500 pages listed at any time ...

Then I created a sitemap. Three weeks later, over 50,000 pages were
indexed, and my traffic jumped from 30+ visitors to around 800 a day.
Google's latest updates have placed my page count at around 130k.

I have twin sitemaps, with around 47k of links in each sitemap. I have
linked them together and submitted both as individual sitemaps within
the Google sitemap login area. My page rank has improved, and I think
I know why ...

Recently, there has been a proliferation of auto-generated page scripts,
designed to basically wrap Adsense around Google listings. The script do
pretty much the same thing. They take a keyword, query Google's dynamic
results, and then create a static page based on a template. This template
includes adsense code ...

Now - back to my theory. Since submitting my sitemap, Google has found
and indexed literally hundreds of thousands of my pages (dynamic & static)
and because my pages are now part of Google's index, other webmasters
that develop auto-generated websites are building backlinks.

I have done nothing to promote my website, and yet I have over 200 links
pointing back to me, and my PR is now 2 (after update today). So I would
say that creating and submitting your sitemap is worthwhile, because it will
mean more fodder for auto-generated websites, thus free backlinks ...