Hi Moz peeps, google said that we should have two site maps...
-
Hi Moz peeps, google said that we should have two site maps...
one for google and one for people. Now i know having a site map to submit to google for the first time is important for SEO, but is having a site map for people visitng the site help at all in terms of google's bots crawling your site?
I know it might actually help human people navigate through your site, I just want to know if by not having it or having it affects on page SEO at all,
thanks guys
-
David
I think what you are referring to is HTML sitemaps vs XML Sitemaps and the inclusion of both. Google prefers XML and people use HTML : From GWMT -
Sitemaps are a way to tell Google about pages on your site we might not otherwise discover. In its simplest terms, a XML Sitemap—usually called Sitemap, with a capital S—is a list of the pages on your website. Creating and submitting a Sitemap helps make sure that Google knows about all the pages on your site, Including URLs that may not be discoverable by Google's normal crawling process.
I agree with the others, that an HTML sitemap can be helpful to visitors. For indexing, we use XML.
Best
-
Hi David, For SEO to be effective it is important that the search engine spiders and web crawlers can properly index a site. Based on your site's architecture and its links (both external and internal) the engines can establish and weight the profile of how each interacts to map out which pages have the highest significance to their index.
One of the most effective ways of encouraging full and extensive visiting and indexing of your site by the spiders is to integrate a site map (or maps) into your development. Sitemaps are an easy way for web masters to represent the structure of a site and inform search engines about pages on their sites that are available for crawling. Human visitors also appreciate site maps as navigation.
An HTML sitemap is an actual page on a site containing links to the website's most important pages. Any site with anything approaching complex navigation should consider an HTML sitemap for visitors. Whilst an HTML sitemap can be read and the links followed by spiders (so some passing of link juice is involved that might affect SEO), it also has the advantage of being readable by humans as well.
A visitor might refer to an HTML site map to help them navigate when they can't find a specific page easily. This visitor readability and usability issue that allows users to locate pages within a large site will give weight to your site in the SERP's, (search engine ranking pages) as they will weight your pages favourably for catering to your users and being user-friendly.
HTML sitemaps, however offer only a general guide to a site, an overview, not necessarily containing all the links available to spider in a website. This is especially the case for websites that contain dynamically generated pages (shopping carts, etc).
editor's note: for complete post, see http://www.seoconsult.com/on-page-search-engine-optimisation/what-effect-do-xml-and-html-sitemaps-have-in-relation-to-seo.html
I hope that you r query has been solved.
-
Hi David,
If you have a good structure on your website then there is no need for a HTML sitemap. By good structure I mean, is every important page on your site easily accessible within 2 clicks from any other page on your website? Are your menu's SEO friendly? Are your main products/services highlighted on your home page in summary? I do not use an HTML sitemap on any of my sites, I just make sure that Google can access every page that is important to me no matter where they land on my site.
-
Hello,
A site map for people will not only help visitors find your content easier but it will also help at SEO, because it improves the way your data is linked internally - increasing the number of internal inbound links.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Fetch as Google is showing this, help!
Our Fetch as Google in Google Webmaster Tools is showing this. What is this?? Thanks! https://imgur.com/k6KOQZz
On-Page Optimization | | bluejay78780 -
Optimising for multi sites selling same products
Hi Everyone I work for a company that sell aluminium joinery under 3 brands which are, ostensibly, competitors. With regards to optimising the websites, for keywords, should I be trying to optimise them for the same keywords, or should I use different keyword variations of each?
On-Page Optimization | | APLNZ110 -
How does Google handle read more tags in Wordpress
Hi Everyone I am wondering how Google handles the read more tag in Wordpress. I pasted the link to a blog post on Google and found nothing (domain.com/post#readmore). Then I paste the version without #readmore (domain.com/post) and found that Google indexed the page but with the option to click "read more" to read it. The full blog post is not in their index, just the version asking you to read more. Is this because Google hasn't gotten to it or is Google ignoring it. I am not sure but ideally I rather have the full blog post indexed, not the read more version. I am curious to whether this will cause duplicate content issues. What are your experience with this and is it advisable to use an alternate method for read more. Maybe with a Wordpress plugin. Thanks in advance.
On-Page Optimization | | gaben0 -
Google finding my meta descriptions
I recently had my site redone (about a year ago). Since then google has not been using my meta descriptions much and more so using the descriptions within my site. Is there a reason for this? An example would be http://www.waikoloavacationrentals.com/vrp/unit/kolea-14/
On-Page Optimization | | RobDalton0 -
How do I reduce the amount of internal links on my site?
Hi, Can someone help me with reducing the amount of internal links on our site please? https://www.thepresentfinder.co.uk Thanks Charlie
On-Page Optimization | | The-Present-Finder0 -
SEO for E-Commerce Sites
Hi Everybody, I have two e-commerce sites just launched with not much content at the moment just user login pages for the clients to avail the service. The management is not interested to put much content there i think. Maximum what they will be putting only 5 pages of content in total, not more than this. Any practical tips how to optimize such sites especially when there is not much content. Best
On-Page Optimization | | Sequelmed0 -
How Can I Get Yahoo to Index My Site?
How Can I Get Yahoo to Index My Site? I have installed Bing webmaster tool two months ago -- is Yahoo that slow. My site has been out since May 2010 and for a year and a half, I only have 40 pages index. HELP!!!!
On-Page Optimization | | AppleCapitalGroup0