Years ago, getting back links to a website was the most important factor in SEO, but now, that is not the only important factor. This article explains the use of sitemap in SEO as an essential factor in assisting web crawlers to navigate a website.
Search Engine Optimization. A lot of people are clamoring to know exactly what it is. SEO is the process of enhancing the presence and visibility of a website on search engine listings. Not only is it a process, it is about the tool required to make the enhancement happen. There are two main types of search engine optimization:
- On page Optimization
- Off Page Optimization
When SEO was in its infancy, getting back links to a site was the most important factor. In fact, many books and articles written on the subject will still tell people that getting back links is the only proper way to optimize a website. Back links with proper anchor text, of course.
After search engine optimization has a chance to mature, SEO specialists became aware that using only back links is not at all the best way to optimize a site. In fact, if an SEO is only creating back links, the site is not getting optimized.
In On page site optimization, there are techniques and tools that are related to your own website and in OFF page optimization, there are items which are related to the other websites. In On page the old technique was Meta Tag Optimization, appropriate content, Alt tag optimization, proper navigation for the website and much more activities through which changes were made to the website, itself. In OFF page optimization, only back links were created.
Today, optimization is a little bit different. While usimg the old techniques are still appropriate, creating a Sitemapcan be added to the list. Sitemap is something that came in existence a few years ago.
A Sitemap is a graphical representation of the architecture of a website. There are two kinds of site maps. The first is used to assist visitors to a site to navigate the site and the second is done in XML. XML Sitemaps, usually called Sitemap with a capital “S”, are used by Goggle to gather information about the site.
Sitemap is especially important if your site:
- Has dynamic content
- Has pages with a lot of flash or AJAX
- Is new and doesn’t have many links
- Has a lot of archived pages that are not linked well, or not at all
The use of Sitemap becomes doubly important if the site has pages that can only be accessed through user entry. Sitemap will assist web crawlers in finding and accessing the pages.
March 5th, 2008 at 4:42 pm
I agree for the most part but using PMOG for some time now actually has made me yearn for a widespread use of the anchor-tag in sites again ’cause it makes it possible to jump to a specific statement in an article rather then just regurgitate the whole page to make a statement. Google has already taken away the homepage and in the next phase the reader will dissect an article even further to be used for further consumption.
What I am missing in the article however is the tools by which the SEO professional decides how, for instance, to optimize the navigation of a site. There are a lot of sites out there that assume they have mostly returning visitors who know how the navigation works. If you show them that 80% of their visitors arrive just once (by using Google Analytics or some other stats-application) then it\’s a whole new situation.
May 9th, 2008 at 9:34 pm
Thank you for the tips on sitemaps!
Regards,
David
Home Based Travel Agent
Self Help Ebooks
November 15th, 2008 at 8:22 am
Sitemaps are critical to the overall SEO strategy. Take a look at the new sitemap solution it is called an AutomaticSiteMap, set it up once and never have to manually update your map again. Did I mention it’s free? http://www.automaticsitemap.com
July 27th, 2009 at 6:34 pm
You are right site maps help seo companies get pages crawled quicker.
July 27th, 2009 at 7:31 pm
Site maps are crucial to us in the seo sector.
August 10th, 2009 at 5:38 am
What a wonderful post.. Grateful tips on a subject that is very important to know to help getting a website ranked on the major search engine.
___________________________
Email Marketing Software
September 2nd, 2009 at 4:25 pm
i just re-did a sitemap and after the changes i notice big shift of traffic to the website.
September 18th, 2009 at 2:01 am
Thanks for reminding many of us importance of Sitemaps. This one seems to have been most ignored or forgotten about among many Web Masters and SEO Experts.
An important point to remember ALWAYS is that people come to your site looking for information.
I have had several clients who returned back to me after their site map ranks higher for a particular key word that the actual page which has been optimized for that key word. Some of them like this while others mention that they would prefer of visitors go directly to the actual page.
A site map helps you in planning your site before you even start creating it. Once Now I’m back to updating mine.
Once again, Thank you for posting this. Very informative
December 14th, 2009 at 12:46 pm
I Like the post. I guess it’s hardly suprising that with the focus on pleasing the search engines, XML sitemaps have become important. But if it’s all about providing a better user experience, then HTML sitemaps should not be forgotten.
December 23rd, 2009 at 5:21 am
I’ve got a news blog, and I got a sitemap.
But it’s not named a sitemap, the anchor tekst is something like “read old news” and it links to /sitemap
does this matter?
February 10th, 2010 at 1:32 pm
How do you set the XML sitemap with free XML sitemap generators?
Thank you!
March 13th, 2010 at 3:24 pm
How do I create a RSS Sitemap?
March 31st, 2010 at 7:20 am
Summary of a website stated by sitmap.
March 31st, 2010 at 7:21 am
Great help if we create XML sitemap.
March 31st, 2010 at 7:23 am
Very informative, Thank you for the post.
March 31st, 2010 at 7:24 am
Sitemaps are very important to the overall SEO strategy.
April 6th, 2010 at 11:00 pm
How to make it?..Lirik Lagu Barat
April 19th, 2010 at 3:47 am
good article, I think there are a lot of factor in seo. the best way is to try which one is suit for your site.
thx for sharing info
April 25th, 2010 at 9:24 am
Sitemaps are good for pages that aren’t easily found by spiders?
April 28th, 2010 at 11:55 pm
Great post, I didn’t know that sitemaps were that important. I recently started using a sitemap plugin for wordpress, it seems to work well!
May 3rd, 2010 at 3:26 pm
XML Sitemap is quite helpful in seo process. Though one has to understand what it does before getting into it. In short It helps SE Bots to see all of the pages (XML) of the site. An XML sitemap can be useful in many way. Suppose if your website has thousands of pages and its not possible for you to keep all of them in a normal page of the site. There comes the use of it. Getting a proper XML file created and submitted is not a tough task.. but we’ve seen that not much of them has done it properly for their websites. At iNet Trackers we provide an expert SEO consulting and TOP 5 Guaranteed Organic SEO rank for your website.. an Most Importantly they convert! We also provide a FULL REFUND without any question asked if we couldn’t deliver! Though that has never happened
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June 19th, 2010 at 7:39 pm
A sitemap is just one of many factors that can help your rankings but in a competitive world any little contribution is important. The plugin I like the most for generating sitempas in Wordpress is “Google XML Sitemaps”.
June 23rd, 2010 at 6:59 am
I have submitted my sitemap in google webmasters
August 19th, 2010 at 8:31 pm
Thanks mate, this is the best explained article about this topic.
regards
Sariyanta