Link to site map on every page

[weaver]

I've just created a site map on my photography site with a link to it from the home page but I can't decide whether to link to it from every page on the site.
I've been advised that it's better to have just one link from the home page to the site map. Apparently, if I link to it from every page on the site those pages will lose some of their page rank, because they are passing on some of their page rank to the site map.
To me, it makes sense to have a link from each page to the site map. A site map on every page makes the site easier to use, and this is more important than page rank.
However, the site map also contains an active link to every article on the site, as well as a link to every page.
If I link to the site map from every page on the site, those pages will maybe lose even more of their page rank, because they will be passing on some of their page rank to every article, as well as to every page.
Any opinions would be appreciated.

[Paz]

Hi,

this is a difficult question actually, and I'm really not sure if there's a "correct" answer. I read seo-guy's article "the logic and use of sitemaps for SEO" a LONG time ago, and you should try and find it using Google.

I'm sure a sitewide sitemap will even out internal PR distribution throughout a "fragmented" site, but that may or may not be desirable for some sites because you might want to emphasise certain pages. I use both sitewide and non-sitewide sitemaps, depending on the site.

Cheers,
Paz.

[jocelyn]

[QUOTE=weaver]A site map on every page makes the site easier to use, and this is more important than page rank.[/QUOTE]
You kind of answered your own question right here... visitors will be able to use the sitemap... that is important.

I link to my sitemap from every pages of the site... you send PR to the sitemap and the sitemap is sending it back to the page anyway... the only PR you lose is with links going out of the site to other sites... I wan't my sitemap to have the biggest PR it can have... cause it will get the pages linked on it crawled.

[RyanSmith]

I personally think it is good to put your sitemap on everypage, if for no other reason but your customers.

I personally think it's better to pass that PR around to the different pages. You want them all to get crawled because they all have content that will rank for the search engines. Plus, it's not like you are going to loose that much that it's even a problem.

I say put a link on every page if it will help your uses navigate the site.

[weaver]

Thanks for your comments, much appreciated