Re: Sitemaps - official Status?

Thanks John and Sebastian for the replies. It's only recently since I
dug into the SEO topic - I'm a CMS developer, and a few things my sites
did were no good for google at all. For instance, I have a ?print=1
parameter which outputs a page printer friendly. Google has indexed
various of these, could interpret it as double content. We also have
several customers using various URLs for the same content - for mere
better accessibility. Not existing page calls were forwarded to the
start page, because 404s are so frustrating. So you see, a lot of SEO
faux pas were done with good intentions. I think I've resolved most of
these things with 301 forwarders and proper 404 errors now.

Personally, I think it's a shame that webmasters have to spend so much
time on SEO, but Google is not to blame - it's those darn spammers that
have provoked such measures.

Thanks again for your insights!

- Markus