Re: Submitting Sitemap lowered our placement

I have yet to see any "proof" that a proper website with a proper
sitemap file got hit by a general drop in ratings across all keywords
on Google. I have seen plenty of:
- sitemaps with duplicate content listed
- sitemaps with bad URLs (ie session IDs, etc.)
- websites that do not follow Googles webmaster guidelines (if you
agree with them or not doesn't matter, it's Googles engine and they can
set the guidelines)
- websites that get hit by general Google changes (eg the still running
Jagger-update)
- websites that have temporaraly had their URLs removed only to get
reindexed with the clean set from the sitemap file (which is a good
thing)
- etc.

Those are all things that can and will influence your rankings, things
that could be avoided (unless targeted by a general Google update).
Keep in mind that Sitemaps lets Google take a better look at your
website - if you do not want Google to do that (ie keyword stuffing,
hidden text, link farms, cloaking, sneaky redirects, etc. etc.), then
don't push your URLs in Googles direction :-).

But Sebastian's the expert - and he says:
http://www.smart-it-consulting.com/article.htm?node=163&page=115

Cheers
John ( http://seside.net/ )