Is a Google Sitemap still necessary?

[Walther]

Was talking to a friend who mention something about not needed a google sitemap anymore.
Keep in mind the conversation was about getting websites indexed and ranking for keywords ect
Is it still a good idea to use a Google Sitemap?

 

[itsdjango]

As far as i know Sitemap is a must for a website.

 

[growbrew]

It is definitely a must. It can speed up indexing even for a small page (dozens of pages). For a large site (thousands of pages) you just can't live without it. It will also give you helpful statistics on Google Webmaster Tools.

Your friend is simply clueless.

 

[infoasian]

I have thousands of websites. None of them ever had a sitemap submitted and they are all indexed. My conclusion: sitemap submissions are a waste of time.

 

[Gogol]

Either submit a sitemap. or place rel="next", rel="prev" and rel="canonical" tags properly. Both should work but either one is needed IMO.

 

[Toz]

I have thousands of websites. None of them ever had a sitemap submitted and they are all indexed. My conclusion: sitemap submissions are a waste of time.

Thousands? Holy sh...

 

[Aty]

Is it still a good idea to use a Google Sitemap?

Yes, imo. .

 

[BusinessMagnet]

Yup! Dude, how will you let crawlers know about your entire site?

Even inner pages.

 

[linktolinker]

Sitemap is a safer way to give Google an idea about your site. Even internal linking helps Google to crawl your site, but this can sometimes create problems, if there is a broken link, etc. Sitemap always keeps you safe and will help Google crawl your site easily.

 

[sammyseo]

A sitemap helps as far as getting indexed faster by google

 

[Compubear]

Sitemap is not a must. It can help you get your site indexed by Google better. You can create it very easily... 5 min of work.

 

[krswlr]

Adding a sitemap is just a good practice. It means nothing in terms of what's bringing traffic.

 

[SEO Most Wanted]

Yeah Obviously Google Sitemap Is One Of The Essential Gadget For a Perfect Site.

 

[infobrandz]

Google sitemap is most important for website.

 

[Phrancis]

Was talking to a friend who mention something about not needed a google sitemap anymore.
Keep in mind the conversation was about getting websites indexed and ranking for keywords ect
Is it still a good idea to use a Google Sitemap?

Bro, sitemaps are to your website what BLOOD is to you. And the good thing is it doesn't need design, just a bunch of code and text. Don't have a website that doesn't have a sitemap man. Even bloggertemplates have sitemap codes in their metadata code.

 

[michela]

I think yes because its more fast to index tour site or blog on google fast at normally

 

[seocrab]

Your site might get indexed without a sitemap BUT by altering your sitemap you can have more control on WHAT and HOW your site is indexed. I find that making small changes on a sitemap (like update frequency from daily to hourly) makes a big difference.

Don't forget video sitemaps either.

 

[linktolinker]

i want to send p.m i have to spam for reach my posts to 15 . sry ...

Lol......Writing this might get your posts deleted.

 

[Numbuh362]

I still use sitemaps, it helps your site index faster. They take like 1 minute to make so why not use sitemaps, and they might help with seo from rumors I've read spreading around this forum.

 

[samiejg]

Was talking to a friend who mention something about not needed a google sitemap anymore.
Keep in mind the conversation was about getting websites indexed and ranking for keywords ect
Is it still a good idea to use a Google Sitemap?

Actually, it has never been needed really. But is it still a good idea? I would say yes unless you don't plan on adding content regularly to your website.

Say if you didn't have one, you would have to rely on Google to search through links on your site to find it, and depending on the structure of your website, and how often they check your website, as well as how hidden(deep in) you have it, they might not find your new content. Plus.. say if you had a Wordpress site for example, you might have categories or archived pages nofollow/noindex so they wouldn't be able to go far to look for the content.

So with your sitemap, they will know where everything is, and you can even resubmit your sitemap through the google webmaster tools to give them a heads up that there is new content. Then they'll just have to check your sitemap.

If you didn't use sitemaps, you would have to rely on submitting each URL separately, which would still work out in the end But more work and more complicated.

Edit: Also, if you're using Wordpress, there are plenty of plugins out there that will automatically do this for you. It creates your sitemap based on your posts, and when you add a new post, it will update your sitemap automatically.