Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Is having a site map page necessary?
-
Hello all!
So I know having a sitemap XML file is important to include in your robots.txt file. I also know it is important to submit your XML sitemap to Google and Bing. However, I am wondering if it is beneficial for your site's SEO value to have a sitemap page displayed on your website? Or is this just a redundant action if you have already done the above two actions with your XML sitemap?
Thanks in advance!
-
-
As usual with most discussion regarding sitemap, you will see 99% of people recommending them provide not concrete, fact based reason as to any actual benefit it provides.
-
It provides no SEO advantage
-
The reason that it's useful to users is like saying my primary navigation system and search function is too difficult to use.
-
If you have a large website with lots of deep, frequently changing content, Google will recognize this and increase the crawl frequency and depth.
Sitemaps in my opinion or for the "tin foil hat" crowd.
But.. conversely, they don't hurt either. If you have a plugin or script that automatically runs over and over to update it for you, then one could legitimately say "Why not?"
There are some obscure reasons one might use - like adding a gazillion new pages to an otherwise small website and wanting to get them indexed sooner or later. But that's really the only one I can think of.
-
-
As long as you have a a sitemap XML included, I would not worry about having a sitemap page displayed on the actual website. It won't necessarily help you, but not having one won't hurt your results.
-
Myles92, recently (in the past few months, I don't recall specifically when) Google did give some recommendations that included having an html sitemap page on your website. For a good user experience, it is recommended that you have a good navigation structure as well as an "html sitemap". The html sitemap page allows users to see the overall structure of the website, and click through to a certain page or section of the site.
-
I honestly think it's not required anymore. There may be a benefit to a small site but I think it would be negligble.
-
Hi Myles,
Good question. The short answer is that it is not necessary for SEO if you have pages linked elsewhere (such as your menu and category pages), but it can be beneficial. The reason it can be good for SEO is to cover all the bases and make sure that even your least important posts and pages get some internal links to them and get crawled.
It can be a great resource for users to find things on your site. The main purpose of these pages is for users.
If your sitemap is going to be very massive I would consider using other navigation menus, sub-navigation menus or categories instead. Otherwise go ahead and add one.
Matt Cutts of Google has previously said that an HTML sitemap can be more beneficial than XML sitemaps for indexing. Both are recommended. Hope this helps and best of luck with your SEO efforts.
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
-
Moving pages to new domain
Hello, Our product pages are ranked #1 on google for our target keywords using our domain e.g. www.olddomain.com/cases/productxyz and sell about 20 products all ranked #1. We have a new company called www.newco.com/case/product1, 2, 3 etc. We use woocommerce e-commerce for both old and new sites. What is the best way to list our old co-products on our new site and move over the #1 rankings? Do we create new products (using our new nice design) in the newco.com woo commerce and then redirect old co links? do we copy and paste all that old content into the newco.com? Totally confused. Thank you!
Web Design | | Jamesmcd031 -
How to fix non-crawlable pages affected by CSS modals?
I stumbled across something new when doing a site audit in SEMRUSH today ---> Modals. The case: Several pages could not be crawled because of (modal:) in the URL. What I know: "A modal is a dialog box/popup window that is displayed on top of the current page" based on CSS and JS. What I don't know: How to prevent crawlers from finding them.
Web Design | | Dan-Louis0 -
What’s the best tool to visualize internal link structure and relationships between pages on a single site?
I‘d like to review the internal linking structure on my site. Is there a tool that can visualize the relationships between all of the pages within my site?
Web Design | | QBSEO0 -
2 Menu links to same page. Is this a problem?
One of my clients wants to link to the same page from several places in the navigation menu. Does this create any crawl issues or indexing problems? It's the same page (same url) so there is no duplicate content problems. Since the page is promotional, the client wants the page accessible from different places in the nav bar. Thanks, Dino
Web Design | | Dino640 -
Should i not use hyphens in web page titles? Google Penalty for hyphens?
all the page titles in my site have hyphens between the words like this: http://texas.com/texas-plumbers.html I have seen tests where hyphenated domain names ranked lower than non hyphenated domain names. Does this mean my pages are being penalized for hyphens or is this only in the domain that it is penalized? If I create new pages should I not use hyphens in the page titles when there are two or more words in the title? If I changed all my page titles to eliminate the hyphens, I would lose all my rankings correct? My site is 12 years old and if I changed all these titles I'm guessing that each page would be thrown in the google sandbox for several months, is this true? Thanks mozzers!
Web Design | | Ron100 -
Too Many Outbound Links on the Home Page - Bad for SEO?
Hello Again Moz community, This is my last Q of the day: I have a LOT of outbound links on the home page of www.web3.ca Some are to clients projects, most are to other pages on the website. Can reducing this to the core pages have a positive impact on SEO? Thanks, Anton
Web Design | | Web3Marketing870 -
One Page Guide vs. Multiple Individual Pages
Howdy, Mozzers! I am having a battle with my inner-self regarding how to structure a resources section for our website. We're building out several pieces of content that are meant to be educational for our clients and I'm having trouble deciding how to layout the content structure. We could either layout all eight short sections on a single page, or create individual pages for each section. The goal is obviously to attract new potential clients by targeting these terms that they may be searching for in an information gathering stage. Here's my dilemma...
Web Design | | jpretz
With the single page guide, it would be nice because it will have a lot of content (and of course, keywords) to be picked up by the SERPS but I worry that it is going to be a bit crammed (because of eight sections) for the user. The individual pages would be much better organized and you can target more specific keywords, but I worry that it may get flagged for light content as some pages may have as little as a 150 word description. I have always been mindful of writing copy for searchers over spiders, but now I'm at a more technical crossroads as far as potentially getting dinged for not having robust content on each page. Here's where you come in...
What do you think is the better of the two options? I like the idea of having the multiple pages because of the ability to hone-in on a keyword and the clean, organized feel, but I worry about the lack of content (and possibly losing out on long-tail opportunities). I'd love to hear your thoughts. Please and thank you. Ready annnnnnnnnnnnd GO!0 -
Having a second homepage for a site would affect my SEO?
Hello guys, One of our clients is planning to have a new landing page for any users hitting the site for the first time. (returning users will still see the current homepage based on cookies ... in other words, the site would technically have 2 home pages). According to this client, they are planning to do something like this: https://www.websitename.com/ (for returning visitors) https://www.websitename.com/newuser (for first time visitors) Our instinct is that is not great to have 2 home pages (that would affect the SEO campaign we are managing for this company) and we are not sure how to handle this. That's why we would appreciate your opinion regarding this topic: From an SEO perspective, do you think this is a good idea? If not, what would you guys do differentiate first-time visitors vs returning visitors without affecting SEO? Maybe just a pop-up? Thanks in advance for your help !
Web Design | | Robertnweil10