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Wondering best way to handle one is...

[eggerda]

Hello -

I have large data driven sites with 10,000 products or more in some cases.

Getting most product pages indexed in google AND ranked - it has been getting tougher and tougher. Between google not going that deep, and when it does, only listing the URL and no snippets - it is very frustrating indeed.

I have a sitemap on the homepage which links to each subcategory page, and then each subcategory page links to the individual product pages.

On a PR4 or PR5 site, I have found that google will not go deep enough, often enough to not only grab the pages, but rank them with full snippets in the SERPS.

I had heard that it may be better to have the sitemap on a seperate page, not linked to from the homepage, but linked to from all of the other pages. Secondly, advice was given to have random links to individual product pages cycle through the homepage (maybe 50 or 100 at a time) for spidering.

Any insights or experiences with what works best in this day and age?

Thanks,

Dan

[robotsdobetter]

1) The sitemap should be linked to on every page of your site.

2) With that many pages you should have more than one sitemap, like sitemap 1, 2, 3 and so on.

3) You could have your links rotated on the front page, which would help them get indexed faster.

4) The sitemap should have no more than 50 to 70 links on it.

5) Having the links randomly displayed could hurt you more than helping you.

[Total Paranoia]

Having the links randomly displayed could hurt you more than helping you.

robotsdobetter - please explain your thoughts behind this comment. How could this hurt?

[robotsdobetter]

Not all the links will be seen by Google using ramdom because not only does Google look at this, but a lot of visitors look at sitemaps if you have no search on your site. Not only that, but if you have thousands of web pages it's never going to show all them fast nor even most.

The best way is to have sitemap 1, 2, 3, 4 and so on.

[eggerda]

Robots -

My "random" question was about the "rotating of links on the homepage" - the "featured products". I'd basically rotate 50 - 100 products through each week - randomly...

Of course, the sitemaps would not be random at all.

Thanks for your input.

Dan

[robotsdobetter]

OK, sorry for misunderstanding your question.

I would rotate the links on the homepage, but not 50 or a 100 because it may make your site look bad. I would have about 5 to 10 of your best products rotated at the left or right side on your homepage and 5 more at the bottom, so your homepage don't look so bad and cluttered.

Have you tried linking your site's related products together? That may be the best way to go about it instead of rotating 50 or 100 of your products on your homepage.