What is a Sitemap and why should I have one?

Many experts agree that a sitemap is a must for every website, blog, or a web directory. Often you will see that there is a little link on the front page of a website that is labeled Sitemap. So, what is a Sitemap? Basically, it is a graphical representation of the structural and hierarchical linkage of a web site.

Sitemap is something which came in existence a few years back. People thought it is a tool through which they can optimize their websites. In fact sitemap is an easy tool through which a site owner can inform search engines about the pages of their websites. Through sitemap people can create an index of the pages of their websites which are required for crawling by search engines.

A sitemap can be created in XML format. This page will list the pages of the websites along with some Meta data for each of the URLs which is listed in sitemap. These data can contain Change frequency, Last modification Time, and the priority of the page. Due to all these data, search engines can crawl more intelligently.

Many major Search Engines like the idea and recommends to have it on every website. Google has stated the same thing in their Webmaster tools. This is a clear indication how important a sitemap is for a website.

In its simplest terms, a Sitemap is a list of the pages on your website. Creating and submitting a Sitemap helps make sure that Google knows about all the pages on your site, including URLs that may not be discoverable by Google’s normal crawling process.

Google also says:

Sitemaps provide additional information about your site to Google, complementing our normal methods of crawling the web. We expect they will help us crawl more of your site and in a more timely fashion, but we can’t guarantee that URLs from your Sitemap will be added to the Google index. Sites are never penalized for submitting Sitemaps.

Sitemaps need not be just a series of links in a tabular form. You can also provide details for each section and sub-section through descriptive text. Sitemap is useful just because it contains all the information regarding all the pages of the websites at a single page. Hence, search engines can gather all the information regarding the website from a single page and due to this they crawl each page of the websites regularly.

What is Search Engine Optimization?

We all know that search engine optimization is a great way to get high ranking in search engines which will lead to more vistors to your site. But, the question is what is search engine optimization? In simple search engine optimization is a process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via “natural” search results. There are many factors which contribute to the high ranking in search engine results.

The process of SEO involves a site’s coding, presentation, and structure, as well as fixing problems that could prevent search engine indexing programs from fully spidering a site. All these are absolutely necessary steps and should be done in accordance with how search algorithms work. The approach to SEO is also very important. Some experts  favor more aggressive approach to SEO while others prefer holistic approach.

I personally view good search engine rankings as the end product of developing a Web site with good content. Many search engine optimizers consider optimization as part of the main marketing strategy which I too find agreeable.

John Scott Experiments Paid vs. Free Directory Listings

It has been an on-going issue for a long time now and finally someone has initiated. John Scott, a leading SEO expert has experimented the results of submitting to paid directories vs submitting to Free directoreis.

He used 2 different websites to see the immediate results. Here is how it was done.

Site A” was submitted to five pay for review directories and “Site B” submitted to 700 free directories. The results were stunning.

According to John, the Site A ended up with PR4 and sends 100+ Search Engine referrals per day while Site B ended up with PR1 and no search engine traffic. The site B seems to be penalized.