Look at these two example links. Which would you prefer your site map to have?
a) Link Type I – With Description
Collectible Barbie dolls Collector’s edition Barbie dolls, Barbie books & early edition Ken dolls. Buy collectible Barbie memorabilia online at great prices.
Barbie Doll Collectible Books Buy early first edition Barbie Doll books. Barbie doll collector’s guides, magazines & Barbie memorabilia.
b) Link Type II – No Description
Collectible Barbie dolls
Barbie Doll Collectible Books
OK, which would you rather have? From a human visitors prospective, Type I is obviously far superior. It looks more like a search engine listing style that people have become comfortable with, and could be easily used to navigate your site. Most humans would not be able to, or want to use a Type II site map.
The fact that both the search engine spider and the human visitor can use your sitemap, make Type I site maps, the site map style of choice for the professional webmaster.
But There is More...
The added bonus of Type I is that it can be used to add even more value to your site for the visitor, and also increase your search engine rankings. Let me explain both of these points.
Themed Sitemap Pages - Added Value for the Visitor
If you build your sitemap pages by only putting links to closely related pages on each sitemap page, you make what I call a themed sitemap page. This gives your visitor real added value. Your visitor will have a list of related pages of a topic they are interested in.
Looking at the Last Example:
Collectible Barbie dolls Collector’s edition Barbie dolls, Barbie books & early edition Ken dolls. Buy collectible Barbie memorabilia online at great prices.
Barbie Doll Collectible Books Buy early first edition Barbie Doll books. Barbie doll collector’s guides, magazines & Barbie memorabilia.
Suppose your site has 10 pages all related to collecting Barbie dolls. If you included links to all 10 pages on the same site map page, you create a Barbie Doll themed sitemap page. This gives your visitors an excellent navigation system to all pages that they might be interested in.
Suppose your visitor found this page by searching Google for “barbie collectibles”. How useful do you think this page would be to your visitor?
Link Trading 
