Google Sitemaps - What to Include

Can anyone please explain the pro's and cons for including anything else other than my HTML pages in a Google sitemap. (All my pages are HTML)

I notice that images can be included, but why would you include them? - and anything else for that matter.

Regards,

Bazza

Hello Bazza,

Many people do not include images in their sitemap, but they are missing out on tons of traffic! When you include images in sitemap files, you are informing Google about the location of your images.

Google then indexes these images and includes them in their image search.

For example, go to google and select Images, then type in cake and you will see a list of pictures dealing with cake.

Wow, so my picture is included in Google images, big deal right? Right! Almost everyone clicks on the image to see a larger picture, and when they do they are taken right to your site and they leave Google Images – but, only if you have the secret code!

With the secret, images in sitemaps does not do much good! Why, because when the viewer clicks on the Google image, Google displays it in a page of their own with other information (they frame it).

But, with the secret, guarded throughout the ages, you can make it so that rather than Google framing your page, it goes right to your site.

Think about this! Create a site with a ton of cool, unique images, let Google index it, and then use the secret to turn that into untold traffic! It really does work!

What is the secret? Ok, so it’s not such a big secret, but everyone seems to forget about it and it works like a charm! It’s this piece of code:


<script type="text/javascript">if (window!= window.top) top.location.href = location.href;</script>

Stick it just before your ending head tag (/head).

This is called a breakout script and will help you turn those images in your sitemap into improved traffic.

Hope that answers your question – and by the way, welcome to the forum!

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I have a novelties company with about 3000 products on it, When I read this post I got excited and then thought about what impact this could have on my site map.

Basic question would be, With the number of images and the size of my site, Would it help or hinder me to include images? Based soley on your personal expertise?

Thanks
MattyMan

Hi MattyMan,

In your case, it would probably hinder it. Google will catch a few of the images and once they see a few that does not meet their format, they will probably block any images from that site.

Not that the site is bad, but the images I'm guessing would not make it in google images.

Me - I would do a sitemap and exclude images.

Hope that helps.

Regards,

Jim.

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Great idea! However, I'm not sure where should I insert this code: on the index page of my site, on the sitemap.xml page, on every page? Please let me know.

Thanks,
DorinG

I insert it on all pages, including my home page.

There is one little gotcha with wordpress blogs. If you create a post or page, then go back in and try to edit it, it will jump you out of your edit screen.

So, on Wordpress, you'll need to edit your header file before and after posts - which can be a pain. Other than Wordpress, I have not had any issues and it works great!

Best regards,

Jim.

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Hi Jim,

Do you have a breakpoint in mind on when to include or exclude images from the sitemap? MattyMan indicated 3000 and your recommendation was not to include them. Is there a rule of thumb to go by?

Thanks,
Z4K

I don't - Google picks them up just fine without including them in the sitemap.

I do not know of any offical rule on this.

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I think what he's asking is: where is the break point for this to be beneficial for a site?

I have a product that i'm developing a site for, and one of our strengths is that we have professional photography of our product in the field. All the pics adhere to a common theme, and i'd say there's about 10 I could potentially link.

Am I an ideal candidate for this?

Also, in a previous post you mentioned:

What format should I be adhering to to ensure that my images do not get blocked?


Thanks in advance for your insight!

Mason

I'm referring to images that are inappropriate (nudity, etc) - eventually, they will get flagged somehow and once that flag is set, I'm guessing google won't bother with images from that site again.

I had originally stated that you should include images in your sitemap - not the case anymore according to Google. Here is a response from one of the Google employees respponding to the question in Google Groups - the question was: I read that as there is no need to include graphics in your sitemap, just make sure that they are linked to within your pages (which goes without saying..)

I hope that clears things up a bit and thanks for asking for clarification!

Have a great day!

Jim.

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