How Important are Sitemaps?

Discussion in 'Search Engine Optimization' started by maddy58, Sep 21, 2011.

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  1. #1
    I was just wondering how important are sitemaps? Also, exactly how are they made and what is the best way?

    One more question I have is, do different search engines use a different type of Sitemaps?
     
    maddy58, Sep 21, 2011 IP
  2. ichszan

    ichszan Peon

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    #2
    You need to know, that there are two different type of sitemaps. The first is devoted sitemaps for your visitors and the second one is for search engine robots such as google, yahoo, bing, ask, etc. Both are important since the first is for the visitor so they get an easy navigation on your site and the second one is to get your site get easily crawled by search engine robots. If you use wordpress, there are lots of plugin that you can use for both types of sitemaps.
    I think that no one know exactly about the search engine algorithm. But if you have certain sitemaps such as XML Sitemap plugin for wordpress, it will helps a lot for your site indexing process on any search engine.
     
    ichszan, Sep 21, 2011 IP
  3. Kavel

    Kavel Peon

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    #3
    I very much appreciate and agree with Mr ichszan.
     
    Kavel, Sep 21, 2011 IP
  4. Redchillimediausa

    Redchillimediausa Peon

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    #4
    I think all search engines use xml version of sitemap. And HTML version of sitemap is created for visitors.
     
    Redchillimediausa, Sep 21, 2011 IP
  5. cathaylist.com

    cathaylist.com Well-Known Member

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    #5
    yeah, I think sitemap is important but most of my sites still rank at first page without sitemap.The most importance are still the content and backlinks.
     
    cathaylist.com, Sep 21, 2011 IP
  6. two step

    two step Peon

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    #6
    Important, but with one plugin it is is very simple to utilize
     
    two step, Sep 21, 2011 IP
  7. andrej

    andrej Notable Member

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    #7
    You can create an xml sitemap for your website for free on e.g.: http://www.xml-sitemaps.com/ (this kind of sitemap is for search engines). Then upload the generated file to your hosting account and submit the sitemap in your Google webmaster tools account.
     
    andrej, Sep 21, 2011 IP
  8. KsNitro

    KsNitro Greenhorn

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    #8
    The xml based sitemaps are helpful to search engines and you can use it to control certain aspects of your site as well. For instance, if there are certain files you may have on your site you don't want indexed you can use a site map to tell the search engines not to index any of those files. Even without it the search engines will spider through your site, but utilizing site maps is a good idea.

    If you have wordpress you can use a plugin to manage site maps for you, or if you don't you can download tools to do it for you. Google had a tool you could use for this which was/is a python script. It's been a while so I don't think they are updating it anymore. But, you have several options when it comes to working with site maps. Once setup it should work for all the search engines.
     
    KsNitro, Sep 21, 2011 IP