Removed Google Site maps and page count goes up

I'm starting to think the same thing after dropping 4,500 indexed pages. Experimenting none the less, I love vBSEO and vBSEO Sitemap -- just trying this experiment out for some more data for the thread starter.

 

Having a sitemap and removing it makes no difference to any of my sites

 

This is a good point.
I used sitemaps for a few months. Yesterday I decided to cut them off.
I'll see what happens.

 

28,600 from ironmass.com as if 5 of July 12:30PM


Got ~2000 more pages indexed, is this due to the sitemap or not I wonder? It's been removed about a week. It''s jumping all around though, so I think these are just regular fluxuations -- not from removing the sitemap.

 

Removed site maps after running for 3-6 months

Orginally we were 48200 cached crawls

Went to 540 after site maps

Removed sitemaps went back up to 677

But now we are going down again to 512

Can any one explain to us why this is?

Added google site maps with a new version from XML-Sitemaps

We have around 2500 pages most are dynamic

Have tried mod rewrites as well

Google site maps only reports one broken link but doesnt point it out.

Xsleuth will find it.

Would like some one to tell us what is the issue?

Is site:www.domain.com not 100% accurate is it worth worrying about?

Found a sql db query issue that lead google no where this has been changed but no improvement?

 

30,100 as of 9:45PM July 7th after reinstalling Sitemaps. Typical SERP fluxuations I still am imagining.

 

We are now using XML sitemaps which seems to be a way better product than our own code.

Hope that the site will start to head back up again.

 

Anyone have the URL for XML Sitemaps? I was using VIGOS GSitemap, but Google keeps reporting url-encoded character errors in my sitemap.

 

Try this. It works for me.

(you can thank Google for that link )

 

We purchased the download and hoping it will help us with the issue. We orginally create some php code to create a sitemap but we had a \n that put a blank line that google didnt like.

Hopefully we will start going up again

 

I have just reinstalled my site map today. My indexed pages have bottomed out at 50 (as of a few day ago). I would say that site maps will not hurt a web site's indexed pages, and it is overall a good idea to have one, just incase it DOES help Google navigate your pages thoroughly; subsequently indexing your entire site.

 

As long as you avoid any type of blackhat SEO strategies, developing a relationship with Google via a sitemap or otherwise is a good idea.

 

I lost a lot of pages : from 20.600 to 900

 

I lost from 300,000+ to 55,000. Added sitemaps and still no change. Keep sitemap. Drop it. I have no clue anymore. Google is the big mystery.

 

hi,
what i know in most of the cases google site map is very helpful to make your site crawlable. now i think to use site map and would like to see it's effect

 

hi,
you are rightly said google site map never hurt, but if some one getting trouble and after removing the site map if the problem get rectified, i think it is better to remove

 

I deleted my sitemap file as weel to see if there is any change.

 

Well we started at 38,400 then added site maps

Went done to 513 removed the site map and guess what?

We are on our way back up again to 689

What is going on. Every one states google site maps wont hurt your site but if you add them to a old 2-3 year old site it drops. Maybe its ok for new sites but I see a drop on our older site every time.

Any advice?

 

Question to everyone removing their XML file... do you also tell Google Webmasters to stop checking it? My index count bottomed out 3 weeks ago and I've only gained like 10 pages since (I've actually stopped gaining this week).

 

I would like to know the result of your experiments so that I can also try out the same on my sites.