Don't know why, but now that I have submitted my sitemap to Google, and all pages are indexed, my organic ranking on my top 2 key words had DROPPED from the #1-3 positions to the second page!!!! I'm very upset about this--anyone else have this problem???
Well, according to tech support my drop is not associated with the sitemap submission--evidently it takes much longer for your ranking to change. It just seems odd that before, when only 13 pages were being indexed, I was ranked very high. Within hours of my submission, there were 1200 pages indexed, and my ranking is on the second page. Back to the drawing board, I guess.
I recall reading somewhere that sitemaps can be a disadvantage.
I never used one until recently because I had always heard advice against using them.
WTF?
No one knows. There is no concesensus on it. So, I try one way for a year. Stop it and try another for a year....
I think I heard that "organic search" or finding you without a sitemap was more valuable than those that asked google to search their site through the submission of a sitemap. Who knows?
Adding a site map should only help. I would try to use Google Webmaster Tools to diagnose any potential problems with how Google views your page. Also, I'm not sure when you launched, but soon after I launched I was ranked highly, then I dropped down the rankings suddenly, and I had to crawl my way back up. I think Google has a tendency to rank new websites somewhat highly, and then re-rank the websites as they collect data.
I've read a lot of things from various SEO gurus and have never heard anything but good things about adding a sitemap. Not saying there aren't those out there who feel otherwise.
But I think a good question would be why would Google recommend that webmasters add a sitemap if it didn't help? Maybe I'm being a bit too naive and there's a greater agenda going on. But having a sitemap makes good sense to me.
It's my guess that your drop is a temporary blip. This happens to us with various keywords from week to week. We seem to be on page one - one week - page two the next - back to page one, etc...
You recently talked about adding some additional text to some of your product pages - could this have something to do with it as Google sorts through the new information???
I know how much work it takes to get in the top 10, so hope you're back on top very soon...
Does submitting a sitemap to Google make them any money??
Did you sign up for a PPC program?
No?
Then why should they rate you highly?
The whole thing is a sham and a game that no one will really figure out how to win......IMO......
You recently talked about adding some additional text to some of your product pages - could this have something to do with it as Google sorts through the new information???
I know how much work it takes to get in the top 10, so hope you're back on top very soon...
What I did was take the text that had been posted on several different pages, and instead made it part of the global footer, so it now displays on more pages. Would think that would help, but who knows??? Such a game!
I believe that is your answer. That would be considered a kind of "black hat" seo trick to get higher rankings by adding a bunch of content that may or may not be relevant to every page of site.
Sitemap DANGER!!!
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