The Sitemap is the file that shows the structure of the website. All structure means we are including its content and its pages and the relationship between them. SEO uses the sitemap to run the website smoothly and efficiently. It is an important part of search engine optimization. In this article, we will see in detail what a sitemap in Seo is. And why is it best practice for websites? Sitemap is also used for giving details about the pages, videos, and different files on any site. It also shows the link in all of them.
There are two types of website sitemaps and they are:
XML Sitemap
In XML sitemap is creating the best particular style intended for crawling by search engines.
HTML Sitemaps
It helps the user navigate the website and looks like a regular page. Now have a closer look at the two Sitemap forms.
XML Sitemap
• XML is the recommended format for search engines like Google.
• They have three original kinds of information for SEO
• The list containing every URL you would like to index.
• The “lastmod” assets show when the URL was most recently changed.
• The “Hreflang” element provides details about the URL’s localized version.
XML is the abbreviation of Extensible Markup Language. This format is used to make it easy for SEO spiders to read a sitemap. A website with new links and extensive archives, according to Google, sitemaps are suitable for larger websites. However, all websites can benefit from having an XLM sitemap. There are no drawbacks to having one, and it only takes a minute to create one.
HTML Sitemap
The common factor for simplifying the website navigation and centralized links to all of your pages was to create an HTML Sitemap. HTML is not further very common. However, some situations in the SEO community still say they are important. HTML can help with linking a website and offer an additional navigation layer for large complicated websites. Fortunately, a solid site navigation system such as menus, footer links, breadcrumbs, categories and so on should not be replaced with an HTML sitemap.
Advantages of Sitemap
People can rank for your target keywords and generate more visitors to the website with greater success if Google gets to know your site and finds it easier to crawl. After examining the information above, let’s have a closer look at its advantages.
Get your page crawl faster and Index
Google can’t search the entire internet daily. It schedules for crawling and various websites and types of different materials. So maybe it takes days, weeks, and months, for Google to find new pages on your websites. Sitemap may speed up the Google search and processing of new pages.
Keep your pages performing well and high-value.
Do you ever update the page on your site? To refresh your content, the changes in SERP are not shown. Google may not have scanned your website since your changes, which explains why. You may make sure that users have access to the most recent version of your most valuable and updated pages by improving the effectiveness of your crawling and indexing.
Help Google to identify the duplicate pages
A company website may contain duplicate or near duplicate pages in several circumstances. For instance, E-commerce may have similar product pages with different product colors. In these Scenarios Google may be unsure of the particular version of the website you want to rank first. You can use canonical labels in the sitemap to tell Google which version is primary and which version is duplicate.
Final words
You should exclude 10 things to exclude on your sitemaps and those are:
• Duplicate pages
• Paginated pages
• Archive pages
• Missing pages, redirected pages, error pages
• Non-canonical pages
• Common URLs
• No- Index pages
• Site result search pages
• Shared via email pages
• Recourse pages are not landing pages.
