Do Google Sitemaps Help Wemasters Rank Better?

[The Shower Scene]

Is there a ranking benefit for Google sitemaps or is it all about discovery and won't help to rank your site?

If it does not help to rank your site, then is it worth it to do a Google sitemap and flag your site as possibly interested in SEO and worth scrutinizing a little more because by association with an SEO tool you are likely to engage in activities to artificially rank your site higher?

How does a sitemap replace inbound links?

How does a sitemap replace a sensible site navigation coupled to an inbound link strategy?

How does an XML sitemap compare to creating a traditional HTML sitemap and letting the bot follow the links?

Are Google sitemaps limited to page discovery but not ranking?

If Google sitemaps are crippled to only offer page discovery, then doesn't it make sense to use a traditional HTML sitemap that will spread the link juice throughout the site and actually help your effort to rank better?

Malarkey

[FranticFish]

There is no ranking benefit; it's all about discovery. Google do not guarantee to index pages submitted.

I'd be very surprised if it flags your site as 'SEO-conscious'.

It doesn't replace IBLS, or proper navigation; it just helps to augment those on sites with lots of pages.

You submit the XML sitemap to Google in WMT as a 'crawl map'; the HTML sitemap is a page that can pass PR and anchor text.

On a large site with 1000's of pages HTML sitemaps present problems; hence the feature.