Is there any SEO value of an HTML Sitemap, or is it strictly UI/UX?
-
We have an xml sitemap that generates daily, and our site and navigation is strong. Is there any added SEO value in either the links, or content of an html sitemap?
I only see answers from several years ago so not sure if things have changed that would increase or decrease the importance.
Thanks
-
I just want to chime in on the "most people don't bother to consult sitemaps - if they need to consult it to find their way on your site you probably have a UX problem" statement.
I agree, but a lot of sites DO have a UX problem, and for that reason I use HTML sitemaps. If you're in a hurry, and let's face it, everyone is, you can go directly to the HTML sitemap and search for whatever it is you're looking for. And yes, a lot of sites still DON'T have search either b/c they think their UX is fine and therefore don't need search. Can't tell you how many times I've had that conversation with site developers....
-
According to Google webmaster guidelines - a sitemap for users still has some value:
Offer a site map to your users with links that point to the important parts of your site. If the site map has an extremely large number of links, you may want to break the site map into multiple pages. (source: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/35769?hl=en)I agree with Patrick that now most people don't bother to consult sitemaps - if they need to consult it to find their way on your site you probably have a UX problem.
For SEO purposes - it still can have some advantages:- it can ensure that your site becomes flatter (content is less clicks away from the homepage)
- Google wants that "Every page should be reachable from at least one static text link." .A HTML sitemap can help with that as well - especially if you have a highly dynamic site where a lot of content is only accessible by (product) search
Sites like Linkedin.com still use these HTML indexes (although they are not called sitemaps but member lists) - as you can check when you visit the site in "Incognito" mode in your browser.
rgds,
Dirk
-
Hi there
From the user standpoint, it can help users understand the structure of your site more, if they click to it. From the SEO standpoint, it can help a bit with moving search and link equity through your site, but it's not a huge factor. Basically, if you have the XML setup and it's crawling fine, a HTML sitemap won't make a huge difference - Google and search engines want the XML sitemap. If you have a huge site, a HTML sitemap can be a big undertaking, but if you're site isn't that large, you have the bandwidth, and you want to create one, then feel free - it won't immensely help or hurt you.
I personally feel that XML sitemaps are more beneficial and are a better use of your time. As a user, I don't often use onsite sitemaps - I feel that if your navigation is set up properly, and you have an internal search, that you are doing the user enough justice to find your content in a quick and efficient matter that it eliminates the need. But again, it's totally upto you.
Hope this helps! Good luck!
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Hiring for SEO Outreach
Hope everyone is having a nice Labor Day! We're a family owned wine club startup and have been handling SEO in house since things didn't go well with a previous SEO company (and sure we've done plenty of bad stuff along the way as well). In any case, we're writing a blog, including video entries etc. I've been handling basic email outreach about posts (ie if I write a winery profile, asking the winery to link to it) but don't really have time to handle more significant outreach than that. Can anyone make some suggestions about where to hire someone for an outreach job like this? It would undoubtedly be part time and Elance didn't give us anyone we were comfortable with. Thanks in advance!
Link Building | | MarkAse0 -
Should I dicard them in my SEO estrategy?
Hi there! Some of you guys told me that I shouldn't concede too much priority to the directories in my linkbuilding stratregy. But should I incorpore it (In case it has a little impact in SERPs) or directly discard it as it has NO influence at all, what would it be more important quantity or quality? Could it have more impact a directory with PR 7 as 100 directories of PR 3 or below? Thanks
Link Building | | juanmiguelcr0 -
List of PDF/Power Point publishing sites
Hi, I need advice on collecting links for PDFs/Power points docs. Apart from slideshare, can you please recommend places where I could collect links? Thank you!
Link Building | | Rubix0 -
Can copyright links to your site have a negative impact on your SEO?
many of the websites we designed have a copyright link in the footer. Like: webdesign by company name then this is made a hyperlink to our company website. Some of these websites have a high PR and other metrics but rarely are about webdesign. What is a clever thing to do? Tom
Link Building | | Onlinq0 -
Does link from a blog in Blogger.com helps in SEO ?
Do you guys think that adding good quality blogs to blogger.com and then getting a link from those blogs will help ?
Link Building | | Personnel_Concept0 -
Remove Unatural Links by SEO Co.
The SEO firm we hired built 2797 links with 123 domain within two month period (March and April) when we don't know better. We received Google's warning on 3/28, and they didn't tell us anything but keep building. Well, that's history now. We learned our lesson. That's why we are a member of SEOmoz. The SEO firm is not too keen on helping us remove the link (we've discontinue the service) after one initial attempt to a few site with tons of links (performed by their Indian team). I've got advice from this Forum regarding link removal. The most suggestions we get is to remove it as many as possible and move on building good links. But, I am afraid such approach will take us years to come ahead as we are under staffed. I saw here that someone mentioned their link building firm wants to charge $10 for links removed. Based on that idea, I wonder if I should offer some monetary incentive? If so, what amount would make financial sense?
Link Building | | ypl0 -
What is the Value?
Hi there, I own a website (non-commercial) which has around 300 pages full of original content, in average about 500 words or so per page. I also own another website (commercial) I was thinking of pointing keywords for all of these pages in the non-commercial website pointing to the commercial website, all the articles are around 2-10 years old, what is the value of doing this sort of link building? Kind Regards,
Link Building | | Paul780 -
Opinion regarding SEO Sabotage
Hello Mozcommunity, I would like opinions regarding potential spammy inbound links from others . In theory you would want excellent useful content on your site that other web properties would link to in a natural way..link bait. But what if links were pointing to your site with malicious intent. For example a competitor bombs yours site with spammy/black hat links. This is clearly a dilemma for search engines since anyone can link to your site...even though you can block incoming with .access I don't believe many smaller in-house seo teams (or do it yourself small business owners) use Google analytics to routinely monitor referring sources.
Link Building | | johnshearer0