Google Sitemaps Not Needed For Blogs
Anybody who recommends a Google sitemap for a WordPress blog either doesn’t know what he is talking about or is on Google’s payroll.
Blogs are not just another website. There are differences between a static website, and a dynamic blog. One of them being that in a correctly operating WordPress blog, new posts are updated in Google within minutes of their being published.
Most blogs only have a handful of pages to deal with. So, since every post is basically automatically updated in Google there is absolutely no need for a Google sitemap.
A corollary to this basic fact about blogs is that if your posts do not appear in Google’s Web SERPs within minutes of their being published, then you have something fundamentally wrong with your Blog’s setup. If so, do not fool with sitemaps as a superficial bandaid treatment. Figure out what is wrong, and fix the real problem.
How are instant post updates in Google possible? It is called pinging. Every time that you publish a brand new post, your blogging software should be sending a ping to Google telling them to update your blog, now. Google will usually respond within minutes of receiving a ping from your blog.
You can skip to the end and leave a comment. Pinging is currently not allowed.
June 4, 2008 at 9:24 pm
Google xml sitemaps are definitely NOT recommended for WordPress blogs. They can interfere with Google crawling your blog every time you ping them.