Site Maps, Are site maps always necessary

[Wilder]

It is my belief that if navigation is set up correctly, or well, there should not be a requirement for a separate ""site map"" page to direct the search engines spiders. If the home page contains a link to every major subsection and each subsection's main page contains links to all lower level pages and finally every page contains a link back to the home page -- boy this is a long sentence -- then no ""site map"" should be necessary.

Yet I read again and again SEO experts extolling the virtues and requirements for ""site maps"". Am I missing something?

[perclick]

It is my belief that if navigation is set up correctly, or well, there should not be a requirement for a separate ""site map"" page to direct the search engines spiders. If the home page contains a link to every major subsection and each subsection's main page contains links to all lower level pages and finally every page contains a link back to the home page -- boy this is a long sentence -- then no ""site map"" should be necessary.

Yet I read again and again SEO experts extolling the virtues and requirements for ""site maps"". Am I missing something?

Site maps are one easy location for the spiders to get to every location on your site. The reason site maps are good is there are generally pages that are not on your main landing/home page that would be hard to get to if not located on a site map. I'm not sure what type of site that you have that everything is on the homepage.