Sitemap... is it really necessary?

I’ve got a blog with 7k pages that gets updated every day, and Google seems to index everything fine. So, is adding a sitemap really going to help improve my Google rankings? Is it worth it?

For a site this size, unless your internal structure is a mess, a sitemap won’t make much of a difference. It won’t give your rankings a boost.

For smaller sites with good internal linking, a sitemap isn’t always needed. But for bigger sites, having one is a good idea to make crawling and indexing easier for search engines.

It’s not a must, but it’s helpful. Search engines find content in different ways and use various signals to decide which pages should be indexed. A sitemap is just one way to make it easier for them to find all the pages you want indexed.

Yes, they could crawl the site and find everything if the internal navigation is good. But there are also other things like x-robots, Meta robots, and canonical links that help guide what gets indexed.

Adding a sitemap can speed up the discovery of new pages too, especially if they’re buried deep in your site structure. It’s a lot quicker for search engines to discover them through a sitemap than by just following internal links.

But not every site is the same. If your site is being crawled quickly and everything is being indexed fast, you might not need it. But if you’re adding new pages, why not use a sitemap? It’s a one-time setup that’s easy to maintain and helps Google find your new pages faster.

I’m not sure, but I know sitemaps can be made automatically during the build process. It doesn’t seem like there’s much harm in not having one, especially since setting it up isn’t too much work.

A sitemap is basically a way to tell Google about all the different links on your site so it can crawl them and understand your site better.

For smaller sites, HTML sitemaps can be more useful than XML ones. If you add it to your footer, it helps Google find pages that might not be linked to directly. XML sitemaps on low-authority sites can get ignored for a while, so having HTML links in the footer is better for some sites.

Honestly, yeah. But I think it’s better to keep your sitemap hidden so no one can take your strategies.

ContentCraftCleo said:
Honestly, yeah. But I think it’s better to keep your sitemap hidden so no one can take your strategies.

Most SEO strategies shouldn’t be stolen anyway.

There’s a thing called ‘crawl budget’. I was wondering about this too. We onboarded a client with ranked pages and no sitemap, and they still got indexed fine. I think it’s okay if you don’t have one, but you’ll have to manually submit pages to Google and Bing for indexing.

@Molly12
The whole crawl budget thing doesn’t make sense. Google uses your devices to crawl and load pages. It’s like how mining computers work, Google’s doing something similar without paying users. Ever notice how Chrome eats up a lot of RAM? It’s because it’s crawling sites.

No, it won’t affect your rankings. But it can help new pages get indexed faster. And if you don’t have a sitemap, Google won’t know about subpages unless they’re linked internally.

I’m saying it: 98% of the time, XML sitemaps aren’t needed. Google is smart enough to find everything on its own. But if you have an automated system like WordPress, it’s easy to set up, so why not? But if you’re working with developers to create one, I wouldn’t bother.

Google can crawl sites well now. With all its intelligence, you don’t really need a sitemap.

Oh yeah! Make sure to add all the sitemap pages.

A sitemap isn’t strictly required if Google is already crawling and indexing everything. But it can still offer some benefits:

  1. Better Crawling: It helps Google find new pages faster, especially with a large site that gets updated daily.
  2. Highlight Key Pages: You can tell Google which pages are important.
  3. Troubleshooting: If you have indexing issues, a sitemap can make it easier to spot and fix problems.

But adding a sitemap won’t improve rankings by itself. Google cares more about things like page quality, backlinks, and how users interact with your site. For your site, it’s not essential, but it could make Google’s job easier as your content grows. Think of it like giving Google a map to your site—it can help, but it’s not a must-have.