this topic is unknow some say it is a must other say its not even important. From my experience it hasn't help a bit.
A sitemap will help your site get crawled faster and more often but won't help your page rank at all.
IMO, it is important for large sites. Google doesn't have problems with small sites. The number of indexed pages for one of my forums was stuck at 11000-12000 for months. I submitted a sitemap to Google Webmaster Tools and the number went to 17000+ within a month. Sitemap can also be useful for sites that change content frequently.
I subscribe to the "just do it" school of thought. Webmaster tools recommends one, and its also good for getting new pages crawled faster. Why not?
I think it's highly important because of you don't make it easyer for google to index your pages then why bother making new ones. Just a thought!
With a sitemap you guide the spiders, which can be very important to getting certain pages found first. It's also part of designating what you want crawled in the first place (there are other ways to control this as well).
if you don't have a sitemap, why even put your data on the internet? Stick it on the intranet at work if you don't have a sitemap, you'll prob get more traffic.. Sitemap tells search engines where to find data --- w/o that they are blind to how your site is laid out and can't navigate and properly crawl...
aside from that, i use a sitemap script that updates automatically on the hour and i'm happy with the amount of pages that have been indexed for my mature sites. i've read that if you use a sitemap and don't update it often, it can lead to 404 errors and hurt your rankings. so, don't use a sitemap if you can't keep it updated.
What is the difference between these two then? I do find that a sitemap helps my serps, especially on loger search terms, but I must confess I though t it was more of a "must have"
XML Sitemap: Does not increase SERP's Does not pass Pagerank Does not help users Does not guarantee you will be indexed any better Makes internal linking issues harder to correct HTML Sitemap: Can increase SERP's Does pass Pagerank Does help users Links to internal pages with keyword anchor text Promotes crawling of deep pages Gives site a flat architecture (generally only 2 clicks from a page to any other page)
I agree 100% on your HTML sitemap, sweetfunny. One nice thing with xml sitemap when you use a crawler to create them, is that you can see any error directly and then you can correct it before the real crawlers meet your sites. For instance, infinite loops that could stay invisible to you for months or for ever jump to your eyes.
I think it could have this effect, but the crawler must have some fuse point included so it will leave your site after a while without having crawled the rest of your site which is not what you want. Plus there could be some negative point to your site when it happens, like "don't crawl it again, it's a mess"
Google seems to be pushing the xml sitemaps and where up to 70% searches occur it can't hurt to do it "their way" And besides, having one can only help