Sitemaps and benefit

Search engine ranking is perhaps the most important element that determines a website's success. The key to getting your website to appear in the search engine results starts with getting your website's pages indexed. By indexed, I mean allowing the Google robot to visit and scan each page on your website to determine its relevance. However, many search engines have a difficult time finding pages that are buried deep in your site's navigation structure. Below I will discuss some techniques that will help the search engines find those hidden pages, as well as assist human visitors to navigate your website. I will be focusing exclusively on Google because, although there are many search engines, most websites get 50x more traffic from Google than Yahoo & MSN combined.Depth of the IndexThe frequency which Google visits your site to index pages is largely determined by the frequency of website updates. If your website is updated daily, Google is likely to visit everyday. The "depth" of Google's indexing refers to the tiers of your website's navigation tree that will get indexed. For example, your homepage would be the first tier and any pages linked from the homepage, such as your "Company Info" page would be 2nd tier pages. Any pages that are only accessible from these second tier pages would be considered 3rd tier pages.