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The Theory
Google came out with a new feature
called the "XML Sitemap Format." According
to Google, the Sitemap Protocol allows you
to inform search engines about URLs on
your websites that are available for
crawling. It is supposed to help get your
site indexed faster because search engines
can find your pages easier… but does
it work?
The Test
Once again we created a new site to
test this theory on.
The site is made up of 200 pages. We
did not promote the site at all except for
using the XML Sitemap.
The Results
The good news: Google spidered the site
quickly!
The bad news: Not a single page was
included in their index!
For some reason Google uses the site
map to spider your pages… but it
doesn't help you get indexed at all.
We waited a month thinking any day the
pages would show up in the search results
but it never happened... and we think it
probably never will.
The Lesson
Don't use their sitemap format! It
probably does more harm than good.
We're not sure why they would spider
your site and not index it… but they
must be using that information for
something!
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