Google Sitemap XML caused ranking drop?

let me preface this post with... i am fully aware of the commonly accepted ideas of why a page might lose its long held ranking... as some of those are outlined >> http://forums.seochat.com/google-optimization-7/i-have-lost-my-rankings-google-has-dropped-me-please-126495.html

however, i have a case that might suggest that by using Google's XML Sitemap submission a page with a long-standing ranking could drop.

i'm wondering if anyone else, with long-standing ranks for a particular page that dropped, has recently started using Google's XML Sitemap? if so, how long prior your drop? most importantly what optional nodes do you include in your XML file?

for everyone else... here's a sample of what i'm seeing:

- my Sitemap XML files are updated daily and include 100,000+ URLs

- page1.html << ranked #3 for competitive keyphrase (for at least 1 year), is included in the Sitemap XML file with a "priority" of "1.0". after using the sitemap for 2 weeks page holds its rank.

- page2.html << ranked #2 for competitive keyphrase (for at least 2 years) is included in the Sitemap XML file with a "priority" of "0.6". after using the sitemap for 2 weeks this page drops down below #30

- page3.html << ranked #7 for competitive keyphrase (for at least several months) is NOT included in the Sitemap XML file. after using the sitemap for 2 weeks this page drops down below #30

obviously i've made "priority" changes to a few of the pages and will monitor their ranks closely in hopes of trying to determine if the Sitemap priority could be the cause.

Interesting, I've never noticed any rank changes with my Google Sitemaps. IMO it has to be something else that's causing it. All the sitemap does is tell the Google spider that this page exists and is here. How the algorithm actually interprets that page for rankings is entirely independent of the actual indexing of the page.

what about the "priority" node? do you supply one with your Sitemap XML files? if so, do you set all the values to "1.0"?

the "priority" node does more than just tell G that the page exists...

I run a script on most of my sites that changes the priority depending on how often that page is updated. Id say most of the pages are at 0.5 though. I really don't think the priority has much value as I have not noticed any changes at all based on it. Even if it did have weight, once again I think it would be indexing weight and not actual ranking weight on the SERPs. I don't think Google works off of this data as hard facts because obviously people would just set everything to the max. I think it is more just what the webmaster "suggests" to Google and it interprets it how it wants to regardless.

It'd prob be best to get a few other opinions though as this is just my experience and belief.

i appreciate your responses slayer, and you're right that i'd love for somebody else to chime in.

i know that it's easy to assume that G doesn't really do anything with "priority" for the reason you said... webmasters could just make everything "1.0"; but we took the time to truly evaluate the priority of the pages to our business for the next day/week/month.

i'd guess that Google has already considered the fact that lazy/uncalculating webmasters would simply put 1.0 across the board... yet the still included the option in the Sitemap schema... to me that would imply that G can and might take the value into consideration when applicable. maybe it's just me... but i can see the value for G and webmasters to take advantage of such a mechanism.

however, my problem is first and foremost determining if anyone else has seen similar issues after using Googles Sitemap XML program... anyone?

I am currently doing some tests on a relatively large site (few thousand pages), where I have removed the GOogle Sitemap. I 've done this because I've heard stories that your rank may be affected.... so we'll wait and see what I can determine.

One thing is for sure, Sitemaps gives Google a good impression of where to find your pages. That's good. However, it may give you a wrong/false sense of security. You WON"T get a good idea of where your weak pages are since everything gets indexed. For example, without the sitemap, perhaps you'll recognize that all pages under /cars/ sub folder require more links because they aren't being indexed often and they aren't ranking well.....

The sitemap itself didn't cause anything... at worse it made Google aware of other things in your website that could have negative effects on overall ranks... while you might see this as "Google boning you with the sitemap" it this be the case it would have likely picked up on it is time.

Some possibilities:

1. 100K pages - as original? ... or some fancy carbon-copies

2. Any pages taken from other websites.

3. Did you have a massive increase of pages index [could be a massive change toward where your internal weight & relevancy is now going]

4. the reverse a massive decrease in pages indexed... could be less pages added value to your previously ranked pages.

5. A change in links toward your websites - could demonstrate this effect.

These are common - there are many others.

Google Sitemaps is for indexing. Priority is related to indexing. What makes you think it has anything to do with ranking? If it is simply you uploaded a new sitemap and your rankings changed, that means nothing. The whether was windy the last time rankings dropped, but the 2 were not related.

I don't think sitemaps has anything to do with ranking.

Hey same thing happened to me. There must be a link between the wind and rankings. The fact that this has happened twice on two independent sites proves it the case. Can others here offer collaberation. Please only post if your rankings dropped on a windy day......... Ans so begins the latest Google SE myth..

Are you joking or being serious? My rankings actually raised exponentially the first day we had NO wind after a month of super windy days. Is there some type of connection?

gazz you are funny... but not helpful. what you don't seem to grasp, with your "make fun of somebody who introduces an idea outside your little box... and different than what your mommy Google tells you" is that i'm being a little more scientific in my evaluations than licking my finger and testing the wind direction.

fathom:
1. original pages, but obviously with similar layout code
2. no pages taken from other websites
3. pages indexed have been building recently, 10,000 new pages in the last month.
4. no pages indexed decreases
5. yes, i'm always acquiring new external links to the site and various pages. however, "page3.html" in my example did not receive any new links recently.

i see how the increase of pages indexed could shift internal weight and relevancy, but again "page3.html" in my example actually has a link from all the newly indexed pages (accounting for weighting). as for relevancy... our product line is so similar that i can't see how "page3.html" & "page2.html" would be affected but not "page1.html".

I like this article:
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/expert-advice-on-google-sitemaps-verify-but-dont-submit

I totally agree with him. I never submit. I believe it can be very harmful, not because of rankings drop related to the sitemap but because of artificial indexing. No the indexing was real but without that stupid little sitemap your page didn't have enough value to rank so it is artificial. Becuase of this your page is not going to rank anywhere. So instead of using a sitemap use backlinks to the pages. I still fail to see the importance of indexing if those pages are not performing. Again it just blinds you to the fact that those pages are near valueless.

The effect of adding 10,000 pages in a short space of time will be to spread your site's PR more thinlly, so less "link juice" goes to each internal page, but the home page normally isn't as affected because all new pages link back to it...
Changes like that make speculation about sitemaps a little pointless imho.

Don't be too hard on Gazzahk, a little humour helps to keep us going sometimes and he does spend a lot of his time helping people (as he would you if he thought he could)

clicky,

again... "page3.html" has a link from almost all of the new pages. that should make a "less link juice per internal page" theory pointless. although the value of each internal link has diminished the number of links increased, factoring each other out.

i appreciate the input tho... any other ideas?

So much confusion, so little time ...

Properly sites SEO'd do NOT need sitemaps. If a bot can crawl all your pages by following clear navigation links, then a sitemap is of no value.

However, if you use forms for navigating a database then they may help to get your data indexed.

Sitemaps are merely suggestions of pages that Google might want to visit. There is no guarantee the pages will be indexed, or even crawled for that matter.

Priority is only used to indicate how important YOU think a page is to your site. Priority is only meant to indicate which pages should be looked at first ... and is only compared to other priorities within your sitemap.

Sitemaps have nothing to do with page rank or search results.

Sitemaps may supplement crawling ... but if Google finds a link on your site that is not on your sitemap, Googlebot will try to crawl that link anyway.

In short ... I can guarantee the sitemap has not contributed to your problem in any way. The timing is merely a coincidence and you should look at your site for the real reason.