What is Sitemap?
- Sitemap is the list of all webpages of the website which is accessible to the crawler and the user.
- Sitemap is build in HTML so that all the webpages are easily accessible to the user.
- Sitemap should be developed in XML format which makes it easy for crawler to crawl the website as they only read XML format sitemap.
- XML sitemap lists all the important pages of the websites making sure that google can find and crawl them.
- HTML sitemap is developed by web developer for users.
- Sitemap should be present in the website root directory as to find the website's sitemap the link will be "www.yourdomain-name.com/sitemap.xml".
How to make a Sitemap?
- The code below shows the syntax of making the HTML sitemap.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:schemalocation="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9
http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9/sitemap.xsd">
<url>
<loc>http://www.your-domain.com/</loc>
<changefreq>monthly</changefreq>
</ul>
<url>
<loc>http://www.your-domain.com/otherpage1</loc>
<changefreq>monthly</changefreq>
</ul>
</urlset>
<urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:schemalocation="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9
http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9/sitemap.xsd">
<url>
<loc>http://www.your-domain.com/</loc>
<changefreq>monthly</changefreq>
</ul>
<url>
<loc>http://www.your-domain.com/otherpage1</loc>
<changefreq>monthly</changefreq>
</ul>
</urlset>
- First we will set the XML version as shown in the first 3 sentences.
- Then all the pages of your website will be included in the sitemap as shown in syntax after "loc" tag you will write your website's first web-page after that you will set the frequency according to your requirement as it will be according to how generally your website content is updated it maybe yearly, monthly or weekly.
- Like this you have submit all the web pages of your website and set the frequency as per your requirement.
- For large websites like for e-commerce sites you should make dynamic sitemap for every item and web pages.
Importance of making a Sitemap-
- Sitemap helps in faster indexing which further helps google to easily find your content on the world wide web.
- Sitemap creation and submission will help us to fix crawling issues as deep and hidden URL are easily found by the crawler.
- It is a free service provided by google to get better report and index your website.
- XML sitemap provides basic information to the users like when the site is updated and how often the site is changed.
- Sitemap submission helps to crawl your website's changes quickly.
How and where to submit a Sitemap?
- Sitemap is submitted in Webmaster.
Webmaster- a website where the XML sitemap of a website is uploaded
- Every search engine has its own webmaster where the sitemap of a website is submitted.
- For example- In Google, XML sitemap is submitted in webmasters now popularly known as Google Search Console.
- In Bing search engine, XML sitemap is submitted in Webmasters Center.
- To submit your site on the Google search console the steps are as follows-
Step2> You will require a gmail account to login.
Step3> Click on add property as as shown in picture given below.
Step4> After that you have to enter the URL of your website and then click continue.
Step5> Further, a HTML file will appear which you have to download and then you have to place that HTML file in your website's root directory this is done so because webmasters need to check whether you are an original owner of the website or not.
Step6> Though, your website's sitemap is submitted to the google webmasters.
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