sitemaps
A site map (or sitemap) is a list of pages of a web site.
There are three primary kinds of site map:
XML sitemaps follow very precise markup rules and are typically produced by developers. Ideally, the XML sitemap is generated and pushed live automatically on a weekly basis without any human intervention. This functionality would be enabled at the platform level via a built-in feature, a plugin, or some other piece of third party software. When XML sitemaps require manual effort to generate, update, or post, they tend to become low priorities or forgotten about.
To learn more about how to generate XML sitemaps for SEO, see the Google Search Console help file “Learn about sitemaps.”
There are three primary kinds of site map:
- Site maps used during the planning of a Web site by its designers.
- Human-visible listings, typically hierarchical, of the pages on a site.
- Structured listings intended for web crawlers such as search engines.
XML sitemaps
Google introduced the Sitemaps protocol so web developers can publish lists of links from across their sites. The basic premise is that some sites have a large number of dynamic pages that are only available through the use of forms and user entries. The Sitemap files contains URLs to these pages so that web crawlers can find them. Bing, Google, Yahoo and Ask now jointly support the Sitemaps protocol.
Definition - What does Site Map mean?
A site map is a model of a website's content designed to help both users and search engines navigate the site. A site map can be a hierarchical list of pages (with links) organized by topic, an organization chart, or an XML document that provides instructions to search engine crawl bots.
Site map may also be spelled sitemap.
SEO: HTML, XML Sitemaps Explained
Sitemaps come in two flavors: HTML and XML. Each has different uses and values for search engine optimization.
HTML sitemaps are primarily designed to help guide shoppers. XML sitemaps are used solely to ensure that search engine crawlers can index the URLs listed on a site. Each sitemap has unique strengths and weaknesses when it comes to SEO. So it’s important to understand their roles when mapping out your SEO plans.
XML Sitemaps and SEO
Because XML sitemaps are more straightforward and typically less understood in the marketing world, I’ll start there. XML stands for Extensible Markup Language. It’s similar to HTML and defined by the same governing body. But XML is used primarily to make information machine readable, while HTML is used primarily to mark up text files with formatting and linking tags, to form the basis of the web pages. XML is typically used for lists of URLs and the data associated with them.
An XML sitemap is a type of list marked up with XML so that search engines can easily consume information about the URLs that make up a site. This is what an XML sitemap looks like.
Search engines and other crawlers are the only consumers of XML sitemaps. For SEO, an XML sitemap is an invitation to crawl the URLs listed. It’s a way of asking the search engines to crawl and index the pages listed.
There are some important limitations to XML sitemaps.
- XML sitemaps do not guarantee indexation. They merely recommend the URLs you would like the search engines to crawl and index.
- XML sitemaps do not convey authority. The URLs listed do not pass link authority, like an HTML link on your web site would.
XML sitemaps follow very precise markup rules and are typically produced by developers. Ideally, the XML sitemap is generated and pushed live automatically on a weekly basis without any human intervention. This functionality would be enabled at the platform level via a built-in feature, a plugin, or some other piece of third party software. When XML sitemaps require manual effort to generate, update, or post, they tend to become low priorities or forgotten about.
To learn more about how to generate XML sitemaps for SEO, see the Google Search Console help file “Learn about sitemaps.”
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