Google Site Maps - does your site need one?

If you are involved in the marketing of your company website then you may well have received a call at some point from businesses offering to create and submit a Google site map on your behalf.

The caller stresses the importance of a Google site map and the positive benefit to your site's positioning in Google. But just how necessary is it for your website to have a Google site map? The answer is "it depends".

A Google site map is a highly useful tool as it allows a website owner to 'tell' Google which pages it should index, and in which order of priority. However, if your site is already well positioned in Google then there may be little if any benefit to submitting a Google Site Map, and it is unlikely to have any impact on your existing rankings.

The real value of a Google Site Map is if your site uses complex technology, has poor internal navigation or delivers dynamic content and you are having problems in getting your content successfully spidered. On bigger and more complex sites using a Site Map could help encourage a deeper crawl and ensure that constantly changing URL's are indexed. It's also a useful exercise when you launch a new website as it puts it firmly on Google's radar.

If your site would benefit from a Google Site Map it's relatively simple and quick to put in place. If you have a small and uncomplicated site then you can do it yourself using one of the many third party site map generator tools that are now available(http://code.google.com/sm_thirdparty.html). For larger and more complex sites this is something that your IT or development department should already have put in place. More information on Google Site Maps can be found here https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/docs/en/about.html

AJAX & SEO - Are they compatible?

Many travel and holiday websites are now utilising AJAX. AJAX is not new, but it is developing into a major buzzword in IT departments and at web developers. It's also a potential source of friction between IT/development and marketing.

AJAX is short for Asynchronous JavaScript and XML, a development technique designed to create interactive web applications. AJAX makes web pages faster loading and more responsive by exchanging small amounts of data with the server so that the whole page does not have to be reloaded each time the user requests a change. This is meant to increase the web page's interactivity, speed, and usability. One of the "classic" AJAX applications that most people are familiar with is Google Maps.

There are some major benefits to implementing AJAX on a travel or holiday websites. It can assist in delivering an improved user experience through faster loading, improved page interactivity and enhanced visual presentation. There is also the benefit of reduced bandwidth usage as smaller packets of data are downloaded rather than whole web pages.

However, there is a price to pay for delivering this enhanced user experience. The problem is that search engines can't see your AJAX delivered content or navigation as they are unable to run the javascript code necessary to generate the html content. If the search engines cannot access your content or follow your navigational links you could be seriously restricting your site's exposure in the search engines.

There is no doubt that AJAX is here to stay, at least until something better comes along. It's also likely that the major search engines will become more adept at spidering and indexing AJAX generated content. However, until they do, the simple solution is to avoid using AJAX where it is not needed on your site. If you do intend to use AJAX make sure that your IT department or web developer create real links and html content to feed the spiders with.

Dot.Travel domains - the pros and cons.

The first websites using the dot-travel domain name went live back in October 2005 in a flurry of media announcements and hype. Since then the hype has subsided and there appears to be little evidence of a major take up of the new Dot.Travel domains.

The benefits of taking a new Dot.Travel domain are presented as;

- improved branding and connection with the travel and tourism industry.

- enforced authentication by an independent third party which reduces the likelihood of cyber-squatting and domain name speculators.

- Dot.Travel domain holders can get listings in the internet's first global travel directory and dedicated search engine.

The global travel directory and dedicated search engine could potentially be a useful promotional tool. However, are these compelling enough reasons to add a Dot.Travel to your .com or .co.uk domains?

Many travel and holiday firms have spent millions of pounds and many years investing in their .com and .co.uk domains. so the addition of another top level domain would simply dilute their online branding for little perceived benefit.

Also, you can only effectively promote one domain in the search engines, so if your existing domain is already positioned well in the natural search results why would you want to start all over again with a new domain?

Anyone that has been involved in the launch of a new website recently will know that a major investment in time and resources is now required to create the kind of exposure necessary for a site to be commercially successful.

So, if there is a risk that an additional domain could dilute your existing online branding, and promoting this new domain in the search engines would be a time consuming and costly exercise, is there really a compelling argument for the Dot.Travel domain? Could the Dot.Travel domain go the same way as dotTV and dotBiz?

What do you think? Let us know at etravel.success@turismotec.com