cre8pc - 2:58 am on Jul 1, 2000 (gmt 0)

<What does the "redesign the sitemap to act like a doorway mean?>

Well, I wrote a tutorial on how to do it, which is on my website, but I don't think I'm allowed to post the URL here.

Anyway, essentially sitemaps ARE doorways. The most effective sitemaps are a text only page of simple text links to all the pages of the site (or at least root level, or directory lead ins - however the site is structured).

The aim in the "old" days was twofold. Include a sitemap for humans for fast nav, and robots, for fast crawl. People used to hide the sitemap, but that was stupid. Why hide an important part of the site? Before long it was discovered that a text link to the sitemap at the TOP of the homepage was an instant hit with robots. They'd spot it, and go see whassup. This was great if the rest of the page had little content or had graphical links or image map links that robots wouldn't see. (You can also stick a hyperlink in the non-frames section of a framed site for robots to go play with. It's a way to get a framed site indexed.)

Soooo, since a doorway is a way to lead robots around by the nose, and a sitemap is already an accepted part of a site, why not optimize it? Therefore, fussing over meta tags is done on that page. Make sure the robot index tag is on it.

Content is added. Sort of a mini-brochure of what's hot about the site and why it's worth visiting. Inside that content are text hyperlinks to pages as well. It doesn't hurt to link to hallways - or gateways to sections such as catalogs, from that content.

The page is coded with REALLY clean code, no graphics except for your logo, and submitted by itself separately from the homepage. (I wait a few months and let the homepage get crawled. It has the sitemap link at the top. Then I submit the sitemap later as a refresher.)

Everyone I know of that's experimented with optimizing sitemaps has been surprised and happy with how well it works for them. One client called it a "workhorse".

The other tip is limiting those text links to root level pages. A doorway to directories is another level, and with the limits on how many pages a robot will index, the feedback overall is that root level works best, or at least, the quickest.

Kim