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.
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
-
Dedicated landing pages vs responsive web design
I've been doing some research into web design and page layout as my company is considering a re-design. However, we have come to an argument around responsive webdesign vs SEO. The argument is around me (SEO specialist) arguing that I want dedicated pages for all my content as it's good for SEO since it focuses keywords and content properly, and it still adheres to good user journeys (providing it's done correctly), and my web designer arguing that mobile traffic is on the rise (which it is I know) so we should have more content under 1 URL and use responsive web design so that users can just scroll through content instead of having to keep be direct to different pages. What do I do... I can't find any blogs, questions, or whiteboards that really touches on this topic, so can anyone advise me on whether I should: Create dedicated landing pages for each bit of content which is good for SEO and taking users on a journey around my site OR All content that is relative to a landing page, put all under that one URL (e.g. "About us" may have info on the company, our team, our history, careers) and allow people to scroll down what could be a very long page on any device, but may effect SEO as I can't focus keywords/content under one URL properly, so it may effect rankings. Any advice SEO and user experience whizzes out there?
Web Design | | blackboxideas0 -
Content thin for new home page been told to change it? any suggestions?
Hi guys, I'm newbie.... I have been told that my home page is content thin, and if I want to rank really well in the search i need to have more relevant content on my homepage - the site is only new 2months and I can see we are now at 39th place in the search, if i make changes to the home page design and add more content will this effect this current ranking?
Web Design | | edward-may0 -
Site as one page - SEO implications
We may be inheriting a site and will be asked to do SEO for it. We will have control over the development of the site, so this structure is what it is. My question is - how significant of an impact do you think this is going to have and can you think of any workarounds that may help? Basically, the user experience of the site will feel similar to multiple pages. However, this site will, in essence be one page and pull various content through javascript from different locations. I have not seen the site yet (and believe it is still in development), but this is how it has been explained to me. Any thoughts? My first thought was to add a blog to add page depth to the site and expand the content. Any other thoughts are welcome and appreciated. Thanks. (I know this is limited information, I'm sorry. It's just about all I have to work with right now, and I was a little concerned and was hoping for a second opinion)
Web Design | | AdamWormann0 -
How will a sites ranking be affected??
Hey guys, My MD has just put this to me, we have a site the is currently ranked in top 3 for all there chosen search terms. The company is undergoing an overhaul of their design and want a new site to match this. They have asked how changing the site design will affect their rankings. More content is going to be added with this there will be new pages links etc Any information would be greatly appreciated.. Thanks Anthony
Web Design | | Anthonykal-group0 -
What can this charity site do to improve SEO?
Hello wise ones, We have been working with the charity Volunteers of America to create a new site for their car donation program at carshelpingpeople.org They are a national charity with extensive local programs run by regional affiliates, so the site is divided into a small national section linked to Regional Affiliate sections. You get to the regional sections either by entering your zip code or clicking on your state in the bottom nav of the national pages. Right now we have developed regional sections for Michigan, Nevada, Maryland, Washington D.C., New Jersey, Delaware and the Philadelphia area. The site is about 2 1/2 months old, and while our conversion rate is pretty good (7%) our organic search ranking isn't improving as quickly as we'd like to see. Car donation is a very competitive space, and we would appreciate any advice on how to improve the SEO of the site. Thanks so much.
Web Design | | Phibnax0 -
How much content is too much? Best Pages For Content?
To my understanding content has a lot to do with organic rankings if written correctly. My question is, how much content is too much and what pages are best to place content. Our company sells very costly products. Our customers call to purchase, we do not have an eCommerce site. Write now we have on average 350 words per page. We have about 200+ pages. Each page is written for that general category and each product has its own unique content. It seems to me that the pages with less content, tend to rank a bit better. As we are in the process of redoing our website, is there any recommendations on writing content, or adjusting the amount of text. I am thinking a lot of our text is informative only to a certain extent. Would writing content just for the main category page be better, and then on the actual product page, have only about 250 words as a description? Are there any other recommendations for SEO that are fairly new? Besides the Title, Description, Heading Tags, Image Alts, URLS etc.
Web Design | | hfranz0 -
The ideal SEO e-commerce site
Hi All, I am currently writing a spec for moving our current e-commerce website and it got me thinking from an SEO perspective. We are all usually restrained by the current website set-up / CMS and there are things it can never do despite how hard we push for the changes. If you had the chance to start from a blank canvas (like I do currently) what would be on your wishlist?
Web Design | | RikkiD220 -
Do iFrames embedded in a page get crawled?
Do iFrames embedded in a page get crawled? I have an iFrame which prints a page hosted by another company embedded in my page. Their links don't include rel=nofollow attributes, so I don't want Google to see them. Do spiders crawl the content in iFrames, or do I have to ensure that the links on this page include the nofollow attribute?
Web Design | | deuce1s0