Are sitemaps in the footer of a smaller site beneficial for SEO?

[nicole.basham]

I'm working as a consultant to make improvements to a with with less than 300 pages currently, and we are redesigning the footer. Is it helpful for SEO to have a sitemap link in the footer? The site hasn't been optimized at all for SEO, so I'm needing to make a lot of other improvements during this site audit. I've done some research and it seems like some sites have these links and some don't and I can't find too much that's recent on the topic. For this org in particular, I'm not sure if this would help improve a search engine's ability to understand the site or if it's not really necessary for a site of that size.

After I make fixes, I'm planning to submit the sitemap in Google Search Console, although I realize that may not really make a huge difference.

Thanks in advance for any input!

 

[Greg Schueler]

There are 2 types of "sitemaps". One is XML (for search engine bots) and HTML (a page for humans).

There is no reason/benefit to add the XML link version in a footer. You can add that to Google Search Console (though Google will usually find it even if you don't submit it). You definitely want to have one though.

The HTML version can be nice for humans if it will help them navigate though your website. It is questionable though if there is really any help with SEO. But if it helps the people on your site, then it should help the SEO value. If you do create one of these pages, you could link to it in the footer (or anywhere people can see it). I usually do not create these as on most of my sites, all pages are easily accessed by menu links.

 

[djbaxter]

IMO, there is no SEO benefit at all. All it does is add a lot of clutter, add to page load time, and generally sit there looking ugly, so if anything it would have a negative effect. If you have a good basic navigation structure set up, you don't need footer sitemaps (or tags for that matter for similar reasons).

 

[Ana]

I'm working as a consultant to make improvements to a with with less than 300 pages currently, and we are redesigning the footer. Is it helpful for SEO to have a sitemap link in the footer? The site hasn't been optimized at all for SEO, so I'm needing to make a lot of other improvements during this site audit. I've done some research and it seems like some sites have these links and some don't and I can't find too much that's recent on the topic. For this org in particular, I'm not sure if this would help improve a search engine's ability to understand the site or if it's not really necessary for a site of that size.

After I make fixes, I'm planning to submit the sitemap in Google Search Console, although I realize that may not really make a huge difference.

Thanks in advance for any input!

Footer adjustments don’t help your SEO, it is better to concentrate ATF for best results, this is what Google is looking for to rank better