What is a Sitemap?
In
simple terms, a Sitemap is an XML file that is full of your
individual webpage’s URLs. It’s like an archive of every webpage
in your website. This file should be easily discoverable in your site
in order for search engine crawlers to stumble upon it.
A
Sitemap is usually used for the purpose of letting the search engine
crawlers follow the links to all your individual webpages so that it
won’t miss out on anything.
Sometimes
we leave out URLs or hide them from all visible pages because we
don’t exactly want some of the users to go there. As a result, some
of these URLs are uncrawlable to search engine spiders.
We
can still leave those URLs hidden from some users without having to
lose out on those pages not being crawled by search engine spiders
through including them in an XML Sitemap.
How
do you create a Sitemap?
A
Sitemap is pretty easy to create. For WordPress users, you can
download the Google
XML Sitemaps plugin to
make it easier for you. This plugin helps you generate an XML sitemap
without having to do anything but activating it.
After
the plugin has generated your Sitemap, you can find the Sitemap at an
address like this:
http://YourURL/sitemap.xml
A
sitemap can
be found anywhere
but
I usually place the website’s Sitemap at the footer too so that it
would have a stronger crawlable presence.
For
those who are not using WordPress, you can use this online
XML-Sitemaps generator tool.
It’s pretty easy and they provide a step-by-step approach for you
to implement your own Sitemap in your website.
How
does your Sitemap affect your SEO?
Search
engines should see all the pages that you want them to see. The more
pages that they index from you, the more trust your site gains. It
only means that your website has more information to offer.
Making
sure the search engine spiders get to crawl all the stuff they need
to crawl from your website is the exact purpose of a Sitemap. It’s
not for navigation, it’s not for internal linking. It’s for the
search engine spiders.
It
won’t greatly boost your on-site SEO, but it would definitely help.
Tips
for Keeps: Get
your own Sitemap if you don’t already have one. It’s easy and
it’s necessary.
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