19.2. A link to your Sitemap

On your homepage, you should have a link to a comprehensive sitemap (one of the bonus reports for subscribers shows how to build a sitemap that the search engines love).

I often get asked whether we should all be building "Google Sitemaps", and I even get emails saying that they have been told these are essential. Well, just to dispel that myth, Google Sitemaps are not essential to getting your site spidered (and spidered regularly) by Google. Often the people who tell you they are, want to sell you a tool to create them. Good old fashioned sitemaps are just as effective, and I even believe that Google Sitemaps could get you into trouble, but that is another story for another day, so dont email me asking for details ;o). I’ll spill the beans when I am ready.

The link to the sitemap should obviously be a standard link, as we want the search engines to find it, and all the pages it links to.

19.3. Disclaimer, Privacy, About Us and Contact Us links

Also on your homepage, you should consider links to a disclaimer and privacy statement, if necessary.  These obviously should be linked to dynamically.

You might want an "About Us", and "Contact us" link pointing to relevant pages.  These I would suggest are linked to dynamically as well, since they are not there for the search engines, and don’t need to rank well.

19.4. Article Sitemap link

If you add lots of articles to your site (we will look at this in more detail next week), it is advisable to have a link to an article sitemap or directory.  This link should be a standard link so that all articles are found.  I also like to add links to newly added articles on my homepage (in a "New Articles" section), to ensure they get spidered and indexed quickly.  As I add new articles to a site, this section is always kept up to date with the latest articles published.

19.5. Link Partner Page

You should also have a link to a "Links Partner" page from your homepage.  This makes it easier to get link partners to agree to a link, since they can see that the links page will get PR and traffic from your homepage.  Use a standard link.  Don’t even consider using a dynamic link, because when you get caught, you will never regain your reputation.

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