Site Map Has More Authority Than Subpages?

When searching for VERY page-specific terms, Google returns the sitemap.

[jelewis8]

I've noticed that a large number of Google search results for PAGE-specific search terms bring up the site map, with those terms highlighted in the Google Description area, instead of the sub-page that, in theory, is more optimized for those terms.

This is true for many of the sub-page listings on my site. Is there a reason my sitemap page has more relevancy/authority with Google? I do know that many of my pages are coming up as dreaded supplementals (when searched for under broader search terms), but my understanding of SERPs is that shouldn't necessarily be the case for more focused searches.

Does anyone have any insight into why this might be the case?

[tedster]

I've been giving this some thought - it sounds like your sitemap may be getting a lot of link power. Do you link from many pages on your site? Is there any backlink from another site for some reason?

[benevolent001]

is it something related to refreshing rate?

sitemap content is updated much often then other pages of website

[Robert Charlton]

I can see where this might happen if the link to the sitemap is global and if there's no hierarchical PageRank distribution, so the the sub-pages have no inbounds except from the sitemap.

How many links from the sitemap? How else do you link to the sub-pages?

[edited by: Robert_Charlton at 6:56 am (utc) on April 28, 2007]

[jelewis8]

So it looks like the site map has a higher PR than the pages it links to AND it was getting indexed. I've set my robots.txt to no index and follow.

[jelewis8]

I've been giving this some thought - it sounds like your sitemap may be getting a lot of link power. Do you link from many pages on your site? Is there any backlink from another site for some reason?

That I know of, there are no IBLs to the sitemap.

is it something related to refreshing rate?

Maybe.

I can see where this might happen if the link to the sitemap is global and if there's no hierarchical PageRank distribution, so the the sub-pages have no inbounds except from the sitemap.

How many links from the sitemap? How else do you link to the sub-pages?

Roughly 125 from the sitemap. The homepage links to subpages, plus the subpages link to each other (though silo-specific subpages only link to other silo-specific subpages).