De-Indexing by Google Sitemap

About 6 weeks ago i generated a sitemap for my site thinking it might help index the few pages that were not in the G index yet. So i generated the sitemap with a Google-referred sitemap generator and added the link to my G Sitemap account. Following day, to my utter dismay, my indexed pages have gone down by a third. Subsequent days have resulted in just my homepage being listed while all other pages have disappeared. I thought Google was going to do a fresh index and get rid of all the crap but after 6 weeks nothing happened. So 2 days ago, i deleted my sitemap and guess what? All my pages are appearing again?!?

So what is going on here? Is sitemap supposed to get pages indexed or de-indexed?? Or am i just unlucky?

 

What kind of a page rank does this website have?

 

I would suggest posting this question at the google sitemaps group because I think there are sitemap people monitoring it and people knowledgeable in this area: http://groups.google.com/group/google-sitemaps

Let me know if you find out anything as I'm thinking of posting my own sitemap but I'm not sure if it will benefit at all.

 

Pagerank of 3 ...

if i do post this thread in google sitemap group and get some answers i'll let u know BrianR2 .

 

I had the same thing happen. Now I don't use sitemaps at all. It's messed up. I have a forums with thousands of pages previously in google that after I added the sitemap...all the forums were deindexed.

 

I agree with Labrocca. I removed my sites from google sitemaps and took donw my xml sitemap pages. I honestly don't know if they're the problem or not, but they certainly are not helping me. And if it's not helping me make money I'm not doing it.

 

For some people it works. But like you said, if it doesnt help us, then there's no point using it!

 

I added a sitemap and my site is slowly getting more and more pages in the index. Google is all screwed up right now.

 

We have had the same issue. From 38,400 to 548 over night. Is it better to still use Google sitemaps or not?

 

I added G Sitemap to a site last year. Since then it has gone thru this cycle 3+ times.

1)All pages indexed
2)All pages supplemental
3)All pages dropped
...and back again

After I get indexed again, I'm dropping it.

 

ive only seen positive results from my sites but i have heard people putting scrapers into google are getting de-indexed but you would have to be a retard to put a scraper into sitemapes..

but what fryman said... google is pretty screwed up right now

 

I've come to the conclusion that it doesn't make a difference whether you have a sitemap or not for I have two directories undergoing a rebuild, one Cantufind.com thats been going for years and never had a sitemap in its life and another The Orange Pages which is very new and DOES have a sitemap.

For the first few months The second one the OP was getting a max of 9 pages indexed when calling up Site: The Orange Pages but with no change except to optimize the site as best I could all of a sudden I have over 1500 pages indexed!!! Is this just a fluke or because I won't let any old crap submit to the directories I have even it does mean that for a while they will be thin on the ground content wise?

Is it Google's ethos that content is King? And that the zillions of wannabe directories (Not a critisism) is forcing Google to take the stance that there are too many dupes out there that need weeding out and this is their way to do it?

Just thinking out loud!

Kev

Cantufind.com
The Orange Pages

 

I draw the same conclusion so I ain't gonna waste my time anymore with sitemaps. Unless they can be proven to be effective I will try other things.

 

I have not yet tried Google sitemaps because I've heard too many people say their site was penalized after using sitemaps. However, I do have one site that was deindexed a few months back and now has only 6 pages in Google. I will probably try it on that site. It's 100% clean with original content, so it should not be not be in any type of penalty status.

Sitemaps may be safe to use if you have nothing to lose, but I will probably trash it once the site gets fully re-indexed. I would not use it on a site that is getting indexed properly.


Cantufind, check your directory. Page through the site query results. It looks like you've got a session ID problem throwing URLs in to Supplemental Results. You do not have 1500 pages indexed.