A sitemap is a list or diagram which represents the hierarchical structure of the HTML pages in the website. It is a website designing planning tool. In other words it is a way to tell Google and other search engines about one’s website pages which might not be discoverable otherwise. The main aim of creating a sitemap is to make sure that Google knows about all the pages including URLs which might not be discoverable via the normal crawling process of Google. They are also known as URL inclusion protocols as it advices what to crawl. Also it provides valuable metadata associated with the pages listed in the sitemap.
Sitemaps Benefits / Sitemaps are particularly helpful if:
- Site has contents which are dynamic in nature.
- Site has pages that are not easily discoverable during the crawling process.
- Site is new with few links to it.
- Site has a large archive of content pages that are not linked to each other at all or are not correctly linked.
Thus in the simplest form it can be said that a sitemap is a document containing all the URLs which the user needs it to be crawled on the website. It also details additional information such as the date a page was last modified, the frequency at which a page changes and the priority a page should be given or not over others. Specific sitemaps can be created for each type of content. For example, one sitemap for blog posts, another for videos and so on.
The importance of Sitemaps should not be downplayed. They help search engines navigate user’s website more easily, which helps search engines index user’s content better. If one thinks website as a building, then the sitemap is a blueprint that informs search engines exactly where everything is located. Click here for More details on helpful SEO tips by our SEO experts.
