Google's Site Maps Beta A Trick?

[pianist718]

Hi,

I hear from people that they used Google Site Map to generate a map for their site, then they submitted it to google and got pretty nice results of google registering their site quickly and in full.

Strange ... can this really work? Or maybe Google using this system now knows which sites are the big boys (those that won't bother with google site maps) and who's the little fish (owners that jump on this service like crazy)

I thought Google was all about being natural and now this?

What has been your experience? What did you hear? Does this work and what results can be expected? Share please.

Thank you.

[SEOforGoogle]

I added it for 3 of my sites - all it's done is make sure that all of the pages listed on the sitemap were crawled - and that's all that Google says it's for.

However, I've noticed that since now all pages are indexed, more traffic has come in...

If you're looking to create a Google sitemap our own, here's how:
http://seoarticles.seoforgoogle.com/...e-Site-Map.cfm

[KeithO]

Google is going after what the call the "hidden internet" and hopes that with this program they can find pages no other search engine can. that is the goal of this product.

[greeneagle]

Is this a new conspiracy theory developing?

LOL

Ken

[DMC_34]

IMO, Google sitemap is a little overrated.

I would bet the inital craze will soon die. Google's intent is finding out how often your content changes. For those sites in wwhich their content rarely changes I would expect to see longer than normal vacations in the very near future.

I dont use Google sitemap and all my pages are indexed and 2 levels deep daily. So why bother.

DMC

[jaldridge]

We've used it to get new sites fully indexed quickly. It does work and it can help. We are just trying it out on some established sites to see what the effect is. It's early days in the project but I'm sure Google wouldn't waste their time on something they didn't think was going to work for them.

[greeneagle]

Think about it.
In future indexing, don't you at least think that they would dedicate their hardware to those Sites that have complied, first?
Ken

[DMC_34]

I confess I do not know much about Google sitemap other than its an xml generated feed, right? When it first came out didnt Google state this would help save time with effeciency of Googlebot by not indexing documents which the content doesnt change much between cycles? It has always been my overall feeling if it isnt broke why fix it. In my case with my 2 sites it isnt, so until they stop indexing mine then yeah maybe.

Not trying to throw an overly cautious spin on things but since when has Google shown webmasters much sympathy before? They havent. But now we are supposed to lay down for them for page 8,987 gets indexed? Yeah maybe if it has never been indexed. I dont need it, if the document has never been indexed and rarely changes, who cares. Frequent indexing doesnt do squat to your serp placement and my site is a testiment to that.

Google wouldnt do this unless it was beneficial for them, ie OOP. So I will make the same stance here how is it beneficial for me? It isnt.

DMC

[freehits]

seems that they fixed something that wasnt broken.

[jacobwissler]

In my opinion, the program was developed because so many websites do not use text links, and Google has difficulty finding all the pages. If everyone followed the guidelines and had text links for each page from the index page, the program would not be necessary.

We now file a sitemap for all new websites and the program has worked well.

(Thank you Ken, for telling us about this and teaching me how to write XML sitemaps)

[DMC_34]

Originally Posted by greeneagle

Think about it.
In future indexing, don't you at least think that they would dedicate their hardware to those Sites that have complied, first?
Ken

Not really,
I have never seen a Google Sitemap generated xml file. I currently write all our cXML and ICSMXML coding for generating and validating against the DTD's and schema's. I am assuming the xml file submitted to Google has a node or attribute for DateModified? If your content isnt changing it would make perfect sense that GoogleBot will come less frequently. After all this freshness of documents was the highlight of this to begin with. If that is the case this simply is unable to calculate the freshness of dynamic pages. The page is never modified but the data inserted may be completely new. Unless the generator is actually comparing rendered pages vs the previous version this will not work as expected.

Google Sitemap is a BETA for an efficiency issue not a webmaster's dream to frequent deep crawls. This should be obvious.

Jacob, I have never had any issues with Google crawling image link at all. Some of my pages are only linked by images and are indexed daily.

DMC

[neiljb]

Google sitemaps has got 4 out of 5 of my new websites listed within about 3 days.
One or two of them appearing and staying on the 1st page!
What I can't understand though, is one site which is a stock photography site doesn't appear anywhere and buried so deep, God only knows where? and yet I've used the same keywords as other highly ranked photo libraries and same textual content. It's nothing about backlinks either.
I'm just perplexed that a quality low cost royalty free and rights managed stock photos library - http://www.photo-image-stock.com isn't getting anywhere when the other sites I put up are steaming ahead. Could it be they're php the majority of the pages?
Anyone any ideas???
By the way... If anyone takes a look and can't see the 'search library'orange image to the far left, it's down to Windows XP and the faulty patch they released that you may have!!! Don't you just love it when they not only release faulty wares... but then release faulty patches!!!
Neil J Bradford: Graphic/Web Designer & Photographer
www.My-Designer.co.uk
www.Flower-Photos.co.uk
www.Photo-Image-Stock.com
Email: neil@my-designer.co.uk

[freelancemom]

I have had such extreme results after submitting my xml sitemap that I'll without a doubt do the same for the rest of my own or clients sites.

Google has been extraordinarly attentive to my site, so much so that I actually ended up contacting them to make sure they weren't stuck.

It's so little effort to create the sitemap -- and certainly doesn't hurt.

Lori

[wrmineo]

I won't pretend to have the expertise to fully address the good, bad or ugly about the G Sitemap. However, I certainly don't think Google's anyone's dummy. I think they saw the writing on the wall with MSN, Yahoo and others starting to get more innovative and competitive. Yahoo has been reported to now have 20 billion pages now indexed right on the heels of them getting ready to run their own program to compete with Google AdWords/AdSense which will seem very palatable to advertisers ...

Google's Sitemap initiative does seem to be helping site owners and webmasters, but no doubt, it is intended to help them too in possibly more ways than they previously disclosed, not just finding all your pages.

Conspiracy Theory, Ken? This is the Internet! :)

[DMC_34]

Originally Posted by neiljb

Google sitemaps has got 4 out of 5 of my new websites listed within about 3 days.

Same holds true for new sites which do not use it and have one good link.

Originally Posted by freelancemom

and certainly doesn't hurt.

I wouldnt be so sure. Time will shed the truth on this one. I hope it stays that way but after viewing the nodes passed in a sitemap, it is pretty obvious the sitemap's intent is not to help Google find your pages but rather determine in the longrun how often it should index your site. Since this is the BETA and beginning then it would be natural to see more frequent indexing until later in development. Otherwise why would Google want:

1. LastMod Date
2. Change Frequency
3. Priority

Seems pretty obvious to me the sitemap's intent is for determining how much less can it index your site and still get the same content.

Originally Posted by wrmineo

but no doubt, it is intended to help them too in possibly more ways than they previously disclosed, not just finding all your pages

You can bank on that. In the end its purpose is to help them by cutting back Googlebot visists not vice versa.


DMC

[freelancemom]

Originally Posted by DMC_34

I wouldnt be so sure. Time will shed the truth on this one. I hope it stays that way but after viewing the nodes passed in a sitemap, it is pretty obvious the sitemap's intent is not to help Google find your pages but rather determine in the longrun how often it should index your site. Since this is the BETA and beginning then it would be natural to see more frequent indexing until later in development. Otherwise why would Google want:

1. LastMod Date
2. Change Frequency
3. Priority

Seems pretty obvious to me the sitemap's intent is for determining how much less can it index your site and still get the same content.

Hi DMC,

That's true -- but that's ok too isn't it? We can indicate which pages we update and how frequently.

Does it matter how often they spider a page that never changes and is already indexed?

The trick for me will be staying disciplined enough to update the sitemaps as I update or add to the sites.

Lori

[greeneagle]

freelancemom,

You brought up a good point.

Some will need to be dynamically generated or just don't waste your time.

Others, "static" generation is fine.

Ken

[DMC_34]

Originally Posted by freelancemom

That's true -- but that's ok too isn't it?

Yes
It seems after reading some of the posts the sitemap is being perceived by many here as an advantage or inroad to more frequent indexing. IMO it will be the other way around the further into development.

I do find it somewhat amusing how Google is trying to predict trends to pages by "Frequency Changed" and "Priority" fields. In most cases this data is unreliable. A product may not change from Jan - November and hence will become LOW priority and then change on November 15th in time for the holidays. The question remains once it is changed will Google still have it on the backburner as LOW priority since it's rate of change has been consistently low for a long period. It would suck if it wasnt indexed until after the holiday season :-)

The true test for dynamic content will be to add date modified flags to any backend products therefore the sitemap generator can query off this field.


DMC

[greeneagle]

IMO - It's really not "Beta" even though they are playing it out. It's been added to their webmaster directives:

"When your site is ready ( http://www.google.com/webmasters/guidelines.html ):

Have other relevant sites link to yours.
Submit it to Google at http://www.google.com/addurl.html.
Submit a sitemap as part of our Google Sitemaps (Beta) project. Google Sitemaps uses your sitemap to learn about the structure of your site and to increase our coverage of your webpages.
Make sure all the sites that should know about your pages are aware your site is online.
Submit your site to relevant directories such as the Open Directory Project and Yahoo!, as well as to other industry-specific expert sites."

It seems to me like they are "playing for keeps" here!

Think about it, there is no advanced technology involved here! - Why the need for Beta?

By the way, What keeps other SEs from using the same file? It is out there stark naked and in everyone's view, isn't it?

There is no "step" advantage here... They saw how much it could save them, so they handed it to everyone else on the same platter, at the same time.

Call it "technology advancement insurance". or whatever you want! Maybe "permanent fixture" fits the scenario better.

Did I get this story wrong somewhere?

LOL

Ken

[DMC_34]

Originally Posted by greeneagle

IMO - It's really not "Beta" even though they are playing it out. It's been added to their webmaster directives

Its still under testing but if few participate then it isnt tested thoroughly. I am sure the interview, the updated webmaster directives main puropse is to increase use and thereby increase testing. I hardly doubt they have enough data and testing to push this out of Beta. Microsoft usually does this the other way, release it, wait for complaints to come rolling in, then fix it a year or two later. LOL
Microsofts best solution for bugs = reboot!

DMC

[greeneagle]

IMO - Not a chance - Not when they brazingly hand out "free candy" to the other SEs!

The vision... I see them now, reluctantly groveling around their feet.

Ken

[DMC_34]

I doubt that.

The simple nature of the attributes being submitted via the xml file such as priority, date last modified, frequency changed are all time based and hence require more than a month of testing. I do development and have been through quality assurance testing procedures many times. They need more testing. So guinea's line up!

If I remember correctly in the interview, Google spokesman, was practically pleading to webmasters to do the Google sitemap to ensure it stays around.

It is not out of Beta merely a public relations platform to increase use and thereby increase PROPER testing.

DMC