What is a Sitemap?
SEO
4Quick Read
A sitemap, or website map, is a file (a list) that contains all the pages of a Website. The purpose of the sitemap is to provide information about the pages, videos, images, and files of a website. There are two main types: HTML sitemaps and XML sitemaps.
What is the difference between an HTML sitemap and an XML sitemap?
HTML sitemaps are created to give information to Users.
Whereas XML sitemaps are designed to provide information to Bots from Google, Yahoo, Bing, Yandex, etc.
What is an XML Sitemap?
An XML sitemap is a list that contains all the pages of a Website, allowing a search engine's robot to read them and index it.
XML sitemaps are divided into four sub-categories.
Image Sitemaps
Video Sitemaps
News Sitemaps
Mobile Sitemaps
Example XML sitemap of Cosmolink
Why do you need an XML sitemap?
A Website needs an XML sitemap for the following reasons.
It ensures that crawlers will index all the pages of your site.
You can prioritize the most important pages of your site by adding the <priority> tag.
It helps speed up the indexing of new pages being added.
You can provide additional information to Google's bot about your site using tags. For example, the <changefreq> indicates how often your page is updated, and <lastmod> shows when you last changed it.
A sitemap also gives you information via Google Webmaster about the activity of googlebot. This way, you can read data and make estimates about your Website's performance.
Finally, through the sitemap, you have the opportunity to remove duplicate content that may harm your SEO.
How do I create an XML sitemap?
There are 2 (two) ways to create an XML Sitemap: automatically via tools or from scratch. For the automated method, several free sitemap generators are available online. If your Website is on WordPress, you can create your XML sitemap with the Yoast SEO Plugin.
To create an XML Sitemap from scratch, you need to:
Collect all the URLs of your site (those you want Google to index, naturally) using a tool such as Screaming Frog.
Convert the URLs into XML format
Submit the sitemap to Google Search Console (see how below)
5 tips for building an XML sitemap
Below are 5 tips for building an XML sitemap.
Give priority to the Main Pages of your site
Keep the depth of the sitemap at a maximum of 3 levels
Use a valid sitemap structure (follow Google's guidelines)
Keep the size of the XML sitemap small for faster processing by Google when the file is very large
If you make an Update, use the <lastmod> tag to declare that your content is new
What is an HTML Sitemap?
An HTML sitemap is a file that lists all the pages and sub-pages of your site. Its purpose is to make navigation easier for your visitors. You will usually find it in the footer, especially on large Websites or marketplaces with many categories.
An example of an HTML Sitemap
How do I create an HTML sitemap?
Before creating an HTML sitemap, consider whether you need one. You need it when you have large sites or marketplaces like Skroutz and BestPrice, so customers can navigate more easily.
To create it, follow these tips:
Get ideas from your Competition
Create the Main large categories according to Traffic
Add subcategories semantically
A well-made HTML sitemap plays a crucial role in SEO. With over 10 years of experience, Cosmolink can guide you in creating the right map to quickly gain Topical Authority.
How do I submit an XML Sitemap to Google?
To submit an XML sitemap to Google, follow these steps.
Log in to Google Search Console and add your Website.
Verify that you are the Owner (this can be done in several ways), the easiest being via Google Analytics.
On the left menu, go to Indexing > Sitemaps and submit it.
💡SEO TIP: Visit Google Console frequently to find and fix problems (error 404, 5xx, pages with redirects, etc.). You can also see the progress of your Website in Google's organic results and assess the performance of the SEO you're paying for.
The same submission method applies to the Bing Webmaster Tool as in Google Webmaster Tool.
How do I find an XML Sitemap on a Site?
You can find an XML sitemap on a site by trying to append to the Website's domain something like cosmolink.gr/sitemap.xml. Of course, sometimes the sitemap has different names, which you can find below.
/sitemap_index.xml
/sitemap-index.xml
/sitemap.php
/sitemap.txt
/sitemap.xml.gz
/sitemap/
/sitemap/sitemap.xml
/sitemapindex.xml
/sitemap/index.xml
/sitemap1.xml
/tag-sitemap.xml
/category-sitemap.xml
There are also formats like RSS and Atom, so you may find the sitemap in some of these locations.
/rss/
/rss.xml
/atom.xml
Finally, you can find a site's sitemap inside the Robots.txt file.
