Site Maps, Are site maps always necessary

[Pinott]

It is my belief that if navigation is set up correctly, or well, there should not be a requirement for a separate ""site map"" page to direct the search engines spiders. If the home page contains a link to every major subsection and each subsection's main page contains links to all lower level pages and finally every page contains a link back to the home page -- boy this is a long sentence -- then no ""site map"" should be necessary.

Yet I read again and again SEO experts extolling the virtues and requirements for ""site maps"". Am I missing something?

[jimtimuk100]

a sitemap is a way to get google to index your pages. I believe backlinks to your site will give you more chance of getting your site indexed.

IMO a sitemap is only needed for visitors on large sites

[hhheng]

You are right, sitemap is not an essential component of your website if you have link net inside your pages. But a sitemap file maybe will speed up the indexing, because it will guide the spiders to crawl your sub pages, not just waiting spiders. Though there is a link to page, it's not a guarantee that spider will follow that link immediately to crawl that page.

[catanich]

We have implemented the Google site map for all of our customers large and small. Not because its required, but it tells Google (and Yahoo) what has changed since Google last indexed the site. The last modified attribute of the link is used by Google to see if the page has changed.

Second, for Google to quickly index dynamic query string pages just create a "text based" site map and submit this to Google as well. This is the fastest way we have found to get a "deep" index from the SEs.

And finally, create a text link to them from your home page. Site maps always receive high PR very quickly and it can then be used for tactical linking as needed.

Hope this helps,
http://www.catanich.com

[Thomas Schulz]

I think most websites can benefit from using sitemaps (XML and HTML). Gives one more way for search engines to index all your pages. However, without backlinks then... Well

[David E]

I think most websites can benefit from using sitemaps (XML and HTML). Gives one more way for search engines to index all your pages. However, without backlinks then... Well

I agree with this although sitemaps are not necessary for a site where every page links to every page, they still help a little bit, why not have them? When I am creating HTML sitemaps I usually use search phrases in the text that links to the different pages as it helps the individual pages rank for whatever phrases you are targeting.