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Anywhere you go on the web to learn about search engine optimization, you are likely to be told that you need a Sitemap. The Sitemap people suggest you have is basically an xml file that lists all of the pages on your site that you want Google and other search engines to index. Most people look at search engines indexing more of their pages as a good thing. The truth is, however, that having a Sitemap may not be nearly as beneficial to you as you think. The first step to understanding why they may not be beneficial is understanding why Sitemaps are necessary in the first place. You need a Sitemap if: Search engines like Google follow links to find sites. If you have a new site, Google may not visit all of the pages on your site because those pages may have very few links to them. Sitemaps allow you to tell the search engines about the pages it may not find due to your site having very few incoming links. Since we know that search engine bots follow links, if the main page of your site is indexed and your individual pages aren't linked together well, a Sitemap can help you tell the search engine about pages it may not be able to find on your site due to your pages having a poor link structure between each other. Not having menus and not having links on your main pages and on your article pages can create a poor internal link structure between your pages. If your site has a lot of dynamic content generated from the database and only a few internal pages, you will likely need a Sitemap to tell Google about your site because the Google robot won't be able to find the “pages” of your site – which, since your site is dynamic, aren't really pages. If you don't understand what I mean, let me explain. Some sites may only contain one main page. When you click on a button on such a site, instead of taking you to a new page, a request for information is sent to the database and data is simply returned on the same page – but to you it looks like an entirely new page. Here is an example. On my niche site for the Wii, ShopWiiWii.com, I use dynamic information to generate information on the game page. If you click on Wii Games along the left hand side. The main game page just shows all of the games, however, if you click on one of the pictures on the right you will see that the Url has additional information appended to it. Original Url - http://www.shopwiiwii.com/Wii-Games/
Dynamic Url - http://www.shopwiiwii.com/Wii-Games/?game=wii+game+Monster+Jam There is only one Wii-Games page, however, by using the additional information appended to the url, I can tell the page to retrieve certain information from the database and display that information. The Google bot may not be able to find these dynamic “pages” so I need a Sitemap to tell Google that http://www.shopwiiwii.com/Wii-Games/ and http://www.shopwiiwii.com/Wii-Games/?game=wii+game+Monster+Jam are two different pages. The truth is, however, that it there is only one physical page. If your site makes extensive use of Flash or extensive use of AJAX, you are going to need a Sitemap because the bots will have a hard time grabbing all of the links when it visits your site. Sitemaps offer you the ability to tell Google about the urls on your site that it may not find because of the Flash or AJAX embedded in your site.
A lot of people use Sitemaps even though their sites don't fall into any of the categories above. You may be asking yourself how using a Sitemapc ould possibly hurt you. if your site doesn't fit into the categories above. Let me explain with an example. Lets say that you have 10 pages. All of your pages talk about candy. Four of your pages are very well optimized for the top 10 candy search terms and you occupy a high position on those searches. Google has only indexed those 4 pages on your site and your site ranks high in keyword density, according to the indexed pages, for the word “candy”. Now let's say that someone tells you that you should have a Sitemap.xml file to tell Google about the other 6 pages on your site. Those pages are not nearly as well optimized and they have not been included in the index. So you add your Sitemap.xml file and go on about your life. Some time goes by and you start realizing that you aren't ranking as high on the search engine ladder as you used to. How could this be?? You were at the top of the search results when you only had 4 pages in the index. Surely you should be higher up the chain now that you have 10 pages. The problem is that you have diluted your keyword density. Now, instead of having a site that consists of 4 pages with highly optimized content for candy, you have 10 pages with only 4 pages optimized. Now your site isn't as attractive for the keywords that you are targeting. Here is a short breakdown of what I'm talking about. Before Sitemap.xml 4 pages indexed / Each page 100% optimized for the candy keyword = 100% of your indexed paged optimized for the keyword “candy” After Sitemap.xml 10 pages indexed / 4 pages 100% optimized for the candy keyword = 40% of your indexed pages optimized for the keyword “candy” Which do you think is better? Why A Sitemap May Not Be Good For YouUsing my example above, if you don't have a Sitemap and you know that you have 10 pages, however, you realize that 6 of those pages aren't being indexed for the keywords you are targeting, you can analyze this and remedy the situation by optimizing those pages. If, however, you just add a Sitemap without really understanding WHY the other pages of your site aren't indexed for your keyword, you aren't doing the best thing for your site. You are going to have pages that are indexed that don't add value to your site. You can use Google Webmaster tools to really dig into which pages of your site are indexed and which pages aren't. Don't just add a Sitemap to get the non-indexed pages added. Instead, go through those non-indexed pages and see how you can modify them and optimize them for keyword density. After you do this, you will be far better off and in a far better position than you would be if you just added a Sitemap. I know that everyone is on the Sitemap bandwagon. Spend some time and really, really understand if that Sitemap bandwagon is a wagon that you should be on. Sometimes spending a little time getting to know why your pages aren't being indexed and optimizing them so they will be indexed is far more important than just getting them indexed by the search engines. Sitemaps can be great, but they can also be a little like using the cure before you know why you are sick. Make sure you know WHY your pages aren't being indexed and make sure you correct and optimize those pages BEFORE you add a Sitemap. Written By Kila Morton
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