Are xml sitemaps a thing of the past?
-
We had an internal debate about the importance of having a sitemap.xml on your website. Basically, there is Google documentation that indicates a sitemap.xml is due diligence: http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=156184
And other authoritative forums, blogposts, etc. which indicate that sitemap creation and maintenance is a waste of your time, e.g. http://webmasters.stackexchange.com/questions/4803/the-sitemap-paradox/
A bigger question is: Are there cases in which not having a sitemap.xml actually became detrimental or risky?
Thanks in advance!
-
As long as you keep it up to date there should only be advantages. I use a free program called GsiteCrawler which runs once a week (automated with task scheduler) so it causes me zero maintenance time and I always have an up to date list of URL's for the search engines.
-
You do want to make sure your sitemap is clean. Bing has stated that if over 1% of your xml sitemap URLs have errors, they'll ignore the entire sitemap.
I do agree with David about the benefits and ability to use it as a diagnostic as well as an aid in getting your content indexed.
-
I don't know that not having one is detrimental or risky, but there are certainly advantages of having an xml sitemap. Not the least of which is being able to submit them to the search engines (Google Webmaster Tools for example) and seeing how well indexed your site is. You can also submit your images via sitemap and see how well indexed they are also.
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
-
Our sitemap is not indexed i Google even though it's successfully processed
Hi, Ours is a WP hosted website. We have submitted the XML sitemap with a WP plugin. It's been successfully processed by Google but it's not been indexed in and can't be found in SERP. How to get this indexed? Will there be any low crawling of sitemap as it's not indexed? Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
How is this possible? #2 ranking with NO on-page keywords, no backlinks, no sitemap...
Hi everybody. I have a question ... I'm totally stumped. This question is being asked today (November 16th, 2015) just after Google updated something in their algorithm. Nobody seems to know what they did. and it has something to do with the new "Rank Brain" system they're now using. My niche is Logo Design Software (https://www.thelogocreator.com). I had the keywords "logo creator" on the page roughly 7 times. After Google updated, I lost about 10 spots and as of this writing, I've dropped to #15. So, maybe I over optimized. fine. Noticing that for the keyword "logo creator" ... NONE of the top 14 spots actually have "logo creator" in their page title and NONE of them have more that 2 instances (if any) of the keyword "logo creator" on the actual page. So I removed ALL instances of my keyword "logo creator" from my home page - used the Webmaster's Fetch Tool and moved up a few spots instantly. So what the heck? And the #2 spot for that keyword is www.logomakr.com - they have NO words at all on their pages, no blog, no sitemap and far fewer links than anybody in the top 10. Can anybody reading this shed some light? Marc Marc Sylvester
Algorithm Updates | | Laughingbird
Laughingbird Software0 -
Does Bing Support same sitemap for full site, mobile, and images?
We have 1 sitemap for our desktop site, mobile site, and images. This works for Google, but I'm not sure if it's supported by Bing or if they require separate sitemaps. Anyone know?
Algorithm Updates | | YairSpolter0 -
Sitemap Question
Hello, I have a website and my sitemap (generated by the Yoast plugin) is set up into three different sections. One thing I noticed was that my homepage isn't in my sitemap. Is this an issue? The homepage is indexed, but does it need to be added to the sitemap in order for it to be crawled? How would I go about adding the homepage to the sitemap?
Algorithm Updates | | WebServiceConsulting.com0 -
Someone just told me that the Google doesn't read past the pipe symbol. I find that hard to believe. Is this true?
Someone just told me that the Google doesn't read past the pipe symbol.
Algorithm Updates | | MarketingAgencyFlorida0 -
Mobi sites and sitemaps
Hi all, How does should one treat mobi sites which have a separate set of files to the main site - with regards to the sitemap? Doe we tell Google about them?
Algorithm Updates | | gazza7770 -
Big site SEO: To maintain html sitemaps, or scrap them in the era of xml?
We have dynamically updated xml sitemaps which we feed to Google et al. Our xml sitemap is updated constantly, and takes minimal hands on management to maintain. However we still have an html version (which we link to from our homepage), a legacy from back in the pre-xml days. As this html version is static we're finding it contains a lot of broken links and is not of much use to anyone. So my question is this - does Google (or any other search engine) still need both, or are xml sitemaps enough?
Algorithm Updates | | linklater0 -
Whats the best thing to do after rebuilding a site to get old rankings back ?
A website changed its platform from the old one to magento ecommerce. In webmaster tools google says that yesterday was the last time that crawled the site, but the old rankings for keywords are gone , traffic went down big time and now i'm not sure where to start working in order to bring everything like it was. any advice ?
Algorithm Updates | | footballearnings0