sitemap positioning

[pagey_3]

I am developing a rework of a company's site, and I have the 'sitemap' link as the very first text on the page. I have it there for 2 reasons
1. My research into usability for disabled users said that a sitemap should be the first text a browser hits on a page as it helps the screen reader go directly to a simple navigation that can be displayed as large text.
2. I was under the impression that a spider, if it hits your sitemap first can more quickly index your whole site from the links on the sitemap page. It can register all your internal links quickly and easily.

However my predecessor when looking at my developing site said it should be at the bottom of the page (as on the orbis site that he designed).

From both a SEO and usability perspective, wht are people's views on this - is it just a personal preference, or does it make a difference where you position the link to your site map?

thanks

[lammert]

You can simulate what a disabled users sees by using a text browser like Lynx. In fact it might be found very annoying to have a sitemap first on every page.

Search engine indexing is not an issue. Your pages will be indexed independent of the location of the links to the sitemap on your page.

So IMHO it is not necessary to have the site map first.

If disabled persons are a large percentage of your visitors, you might try to get your site Bobby approved. This is more or less a standard for sites to be easy accesible by handicapped people. You can find more information and a free on-line test tool at [bobby.watchfire.com ]

Note to the moderator: this link is pointing to a non profit page, and is not ment as an advertisment, so I hope it is OK that I post it here.