About Google Sitemaps

Google Sitemaps is an special file that lists all the pages on your site, whether your
content has changed, and that you have added a new page. While this is a neat
feature, many sites don't need to use it. Keep in mind that Google will find your site
and pages by following links.

With that said, some dynamic sites and other websites that have had problems
getting their pages indexed (think Flash) may find it helpful. If your website is well-
designed with clean internal links and a standard sitemap page, there is no need to
use Google Sitemaps.

Bear in mind that once you are signed up for the Google Sitemaps program, you are
committed to updating the Sitemap XML file on a regular basis, which can be a sink
on your time.

In this regard, it is somewhat of a crutch for webmasters who have a messy or
search engine "unfriendly" site and don't want to change their site. It would be time
better served to fix your site so that it can be crawled completely by all the search
engines and to employ SEO best practices than continually update an XML file. You
may be able to get Google to crawl some of your new pages quicker, but that doesn't
mean it will rank your pages any faster.

Remember, having a page in their index doesn't equate to that page being ranked.
For more information on the Google Sitemaps program, go to
http://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/docs/en/about.html.