Sitemaps - do they matter much?

[TheTattooedGuy]

Hi guys

Something I was thinking about today as I don't have one, are site maps actually of value in terms of SEO?

I can install one using a Joomla addon quite easily, but don't want to just do it for the sake of it.

Keen to know your thoughts

Thanks as usual for the input, it's appreciated

Andy

[monsterbet]

Sitemaps are essential, ideally you should have a html one and an xml which you submit through google webmaster tools.

[Catfish]

Always have one as soon as you have a site over ten pages. I am a Joomla user myself, and for me Xmap works best.

[TheTattooedGuy]

Thanks guys - I will check out Xmap, looks good

cheers

[Catfish]

Re:Xmap: there is only one problem with Xmap in Joomla. If you have an article that is set to published, but not connected to a menu yet, Xmap will show it in the frontend.

[chaumi]

I have a number of reasonably highly ranked sites (non gaming) which have held consistent positions over time...and many have not had a site map within a hundred miles of them.

Which indicates it's a fallacy, though as we all know - you can never be really quite sure in this game!

[Trikkur]

I would disagree with chaumi above. Just because his sites ranked without a sitemap, does not mean it is a fallacy. He is jumping to conclusions. If he would of had a sitemap on those high ranking sites, he may very well of climbed the SERPs faster or his subpages may have been indexed faster leading to more long tail traffic.

It is very easy to set up a sitemap with plugins in Joomla or WordPress and for everything else you can use xml-sitemaps.com That link is my affiliate link, but you don't need to purchase the sitemap generator unless you have more than 500 pages. You can run the free version for everything smaller than that and it creates a Google compliant xml sitemap for your site fairly quickly.

[Prenut]

I can't think of an argument that makes sense as to why not to have one.

[TheTattooedGuy]

Thanks for the comments all..I installed Xmap in the end - much easier than I'd thought it would be (for some reason always thought a sitemap would be a PITA). Done in seconds and submitted to Google.

Cheers

[MilkFish]

That link is my affiliate link, but you don't need to purchase the sitemap generator unless you have more than 500 pages. You can run the free version for everything smaller than that and it creates a Google compliant xml sitemap for your site fairly quickly.

Thanks for that link. Looks handy.

I can't think of an argument that makes sense as to why not to have one.

I agree, especially if it takes very little time.