Wacky Google Sitemaps????
 

SEO'ers,

First off give me some slack on the multiple posts. . . I'm just getting "restarted" on my site and noticing things. :eyes:

Who has Google sitemaps?

Who trusts the "Query stats" function?

"Query stats" shows me at #12 for my main kw, which I know isn't the case as I know that I am in the 30'ish range. Heck I even click the links where it says I'm #12 and behold I am not there. :furious:

It also has me at #6 for a competitors term/name (a competitor that sued me too!).

I know it's dynamic and averaged over a few weeks but even Awstats and AXS Visitor Tracking System don't show me that high.

Anybody else notice this phenomenon????

Chris

Hi,

I'm still not sure about the Google sitemap service. Maybe I'd use it for a catalogue site with 1'000s of dynamic pages. I also think the analytical features might be useful, as well as the opportunity to get a "friendly" warning if your site accidentally breaks any of the Google guidelines for webmasters.

The thing is, I've heard of a lot of second hand accounts from people (sister's cousin's boyfriend etc.) who've had problems after using the Google sitemap service.

But apparently Google's broken anyway:
http://www.seo-guy.com/forum/thread12222.html

so these reported problems are probably not directly related to Google sitemaps.... :rolleyes:

Cheers,
Paz.

Paz,



Could be. . . But some things are supposed to be fixed:

http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/type/googleseo

Who the heck knows anymore, ya know?? :rolleyes:

Chris

Hmmmm....

I read that blog, and it hasn't really made me feel any better:

The team refreshing our supplemental results checked out feedback, and on May 5th they discovered that a “site:” query didn’t return supplemental results. I think that they had a fix out for that the same day. Later, they noticed that a difference in the parser meant that site: queries didn’t work with hyphenated domains. I believe they got a quick fix out soon afterwards,

OK, they've fixed the hyphenated domain problem - but what else have they missed...

Cheers,
Paz.

happening exactly the same for me mate

Blimey, Google sitemaps really sucks..
These are the problems I have with it:

As you mentioned the query stats, mine are still showing the same keywords months later..
It tells me Google last updated my page on: Some old date.. however if I view the cache it is wrong.
Adding a sitemap does not increase the number of pages indexed..
In fact it can cause your site to lose pages..