10 replies to this topic

[myronlo]

I have a site map question for you all. I think it is unique from the ones asked in the other threads.

When creating a site map for my site, should the site map be only 1 level deep - meaning that the link on the site map should take the user directly to the destination page? What if the site structure is so big that there is no way that the link from the site map can go directly to the destination page?

As an example, if I were searching a website on the state of California and I wanted to link to all of the cities within the state, I wouldn't be able to do so directly on the site map since there are > 100 cities in the state (according to everything I've read here, it is best to limit the # of links to 100).

In this situation, would it make sense to link to each county within the state (since there are probably < 100 counties within the state) from the site map, and then have each county page link to the cities within the county?

My concern is that this structure would make the spiders crawl one additional level to find the destination page. I'm not sure if the structure described above is efficient or 'proper' in SEO.

Any thoughts would be appreciated!

Thanks.

Myron

[discountdomains]

If you have a large site then you have no real option but to create mulit-level sitemaps.

I always try and limit the number of links on any given page to <100, I run several sites with 10,000's of pages and the SE have no problem spidering their content.

Clare

[myronlo]

Thanks for your help... My site could potentially have 5000 pages - I obviously woudn't be able to put all 5000 links on there...

Thanks again.

[Randy]

Don't worry too much about how many levels it is with large sites Myron. They'll still get there.

Now this may sound funny, but set up your site map exactly as you would like to see it if you removed your Webmaster hat and put on your Never-been-here-before Visitor hat.

Your example was a really good one. A site map that had every city in the state of California would be nuts from the user perspective. So solving this by listing the counties, the the cities and other services in each county would make complete sense. From the users perspective.

[myronlo]

Thanks Randy. I appreciate your feedback. It helps to have some other input as I am designing the page.

[Jill]

Yep, I agree with the others, and also with your idea of drilling down to counties before cities. That's exactly the kind of thinking you need to have!

[Raphael]

I think, if I was coding this sort of sitemap, I'd use Javascript/CSS to dynamically show/hide the sub-items (and further levels of nesting, as applicable) rather than code multiple pages per sitemap.

I certainly don't think the spiders would regard this as any form of cloaking, and you get all of your links on the "same" page as it were. The text would be on the page in divs, so you wouldn't have to worry about the spiders not parsing javascript.

Also, a page that dynamically displays and hides the information/links is much slicker, from a user perspective, but really it's just icing on the cake. All the suggestions given here are as excellent as usual.

[Jill]

That's a good idea, Raph, except that the engines may stop at the 100 link mark. They themselves generally recommend less than 100 links per page.

[Catz]

If you are building your site map for the user as well as the spiders, will the users be local?

If a visitor were looking at your site map trying to find a particular city, but they didn't know what county the city was in...wouldn't a site map set up this way be pretty useless to them.

If searching for info on cities in California without knowing the county, wouldn't it be easier if they were set up by the part of the state they are in first, then county. This could be on the same page but with counties separated by area rather than just listed by name alphabetically.

Everyone is used to hearing about "Northern California", "Southern California" or "Central California". If you assume people are going to know the county a particular city is located in, you just might leave a lot of people out in the cold.

This is especially true when you get into "Central California". They have so many counties packed into one tiny area, you drive a few miles and you are entering a new one. If searching for El Cerrito, Los Gatos, Berkeley or even Surfside California (which could be anywhere along the coast), which counties will they be in?

The visuals of a map might help figure it out. You might think about showing an actual map of the state, helping the human visitors using your site map so they can see where the various counties are located.

This would make it much easier to find the correct county quickly if they know the general area of the state where the cities they are ultimately looking for are located.

[oneofthe3lions]

I certainly dont know Cali v well, but that does make sense Catt yes..

Perhaps even an alphatebetical towns listings may be the answer then as i agree that people are more likely to know the town as oppose to the county. We have counties in Uk but most of us only know our home towns county.

[rustybrick]

If you want to be fancy, you can go with Ralph's idea by using some form of + sign system to collapse the deeper pages under the higher level pages. So users can browse your site map in a windows navigator like method. But what about the 100+ link issue? I would make the top level links crawlable, and the others, not crawlable. Then allow the user and the spider to click on the top level links, and continue the same approach there. So this really is a mix breed between the idea above and the idea mentioned by Ralph.