Maps have been an important tool used by humans for years. They provide us with a sense of direction and help us navigate unfamiliar surroundings. As much as maps are useful in the real world, they are just as essential within the digital landscape. Sitemaps are a website’s blueprint, ensuring that users and search engine crawlers can find their way around.
In this article, we explore what a sitemap is, find out more about the different types of sitemap, and dig deeper into their benefits and importance within the search landscape.
Table of Contents
What is a sitemap?
A sitemap is a file that shows the structure of a website, listing out important URLs. The purpose of a sitemap is to help search engines find, crawl and index the content on a website, and some sitemaps help users navigate a website.
There are different types of sitemaps, which are influential for SEO and improving your online visibility.
The different types of sitemaps
Standard XML sitemap: The most common type of sitemap that is often read by search engine crawlers to understand a website.
Image sitemap: A type of XML sitemap that helps search engines find all the images on a website.
Video sitemap: Another type of XML sitemap that helps search engines find all the videos on your website. Video schema has largely replaced the need for a video sitemap.
News sitemap: This helps Google find the content hosted on your website that is suitable for Google News.
HTML sitemap: A sitemap that is a regular page designed to help users navigate a website. This also helps ensure all important website pages are internally linked by at least one other page.
The two most common types of sitemap you will find on a website are the XML and the HTML sitemap.
XML sitemaps
An XML sitemap is a file that lists the important pages of a website to help search engines like Google discover, crawl, and index them more efficiently. XML stands for ‘Extensible Markup Language,’ which is a format designed to store and transport data.
Above, you can see an example of the ‘Pages XML Sitemap’ on our website.
There are several components that make up a sitemap:
- A list of all the important URLs on the website that you want to be indexed on search engine results pages (SERPs).
- The <lastmod> attribute, which shows search engine crawlers when content was last updated.
- It’s also possible to set up hreflang attributes using a sitemap, which tells Google more information about your website if you host content in different languages and locations.
HTML sitemaps
An HTML sitemap is a web page that lists and links to the important pages of a website. This provides a clear and organised overview of its content. Unlike XML sitemaps, HTML sitemaps are designed for human visitors.
When ‘sitemaps’ are discussed in SEO, people are commonly referring to an XML sitemap as opposed to an HTML sitemap. For the remainder of this article, when we refer to a ‘sitemap’ we mean an XML sitemap.
Do I need a sitemap?
According to Google Search Central, Google can usually discover the pages on your website if they’re properly linked without a sitemap.
They define proper linking as pages you find important being included in the navigation, or through links on your webpages.
Google states that you may need a website if your website fits any of the following criteria:
- You have a large website.
- Your website is new and doesn’t have many links from other websites.
- Your site has a lot of images and videos, and you’d like articles to appear in Google News.
There are some sites that Google say you may not need a sitemap:
- Your site is small (500 pages or less).
- Your website has been correctly internally linked.
- You don’t have many videos, images, or news pages on your website.
For the above examples, you probably don’t need a sitemap – but both ourselves and Google still recommend you have one.
What are the benefits of having a sitemap?
Whilst not all websites need a sitemap, we highly recommend that you have one due to the potential benefits towards your SEO performance. Here are some of the key benefits from having a sitemap:
Improved crawlability and indexing
Sitemaps help search engine crawlers, such as ‘Googlebot’ find and index pages on a website. This is important for both large and new websites, as you’re helping Google find the pages you’d like them to index. Sitemaps also include information about each URL, such as when it was most recently updated. This helps search engines prioritise and understand your content better.
Inform search engines about new content
Sitemaps can inform search engines such as Google about new or updated content. This can lead to faster indexing and appearance within the search results.
Help technical tools locate orphan pages
If your sitemap contains every important URL on your website, it can be a helpful tool to identify orphan pages.
Technical SEO tools such as Screaming Frog and Sitebulb work by following links on a URL (such as your homepage) until they’ve reviewed all the URLs they can find. If a page is not included within the website’s linking structure, it’s known as an ‘orphan page’ and these tools will not be able to find them without knowledge of your sitemap.
If you submit a sitemap alongside the website’s root URL, technical SEO tools can cross-reference the URLs on the sitemap against the URLs they can find on your website. When a tool finds a URL in the sitemap, but not the website’s linking structure, an orphan URL has been identified.
How do I locate my sitemap?
Finding a sitemap on your website involves checking a few common locations where sitemaps are placed. Here are the steps to find a sitemap:
Check standard URL locations
- Many websites place their sitemap at common locations. Try adding /sitemap.xml or /sitemap_index.xml to your root URL. For example:
- https://www.yourwebsite.com/sitemap.xml
- https://www.yourwebsite.com/sitemap_index.xml
- Check your website’s robots.txt file, which often contains a link to the sitemap. You can find this file by going to ‘https://www.yourwebsite.com/robots.txt’. Look for a line starting with ‘Sitemap:’ which will point to the sitemap’s URL.
Use Google Search Console Webmaster Tools
If you have access to your website’s Google Search Console account, you can find submitted sitemaps under the ‘Sitemaps’ section. This shows the sitemaps that Google knows about.
Talk to your developer
If the above methods don’t work, you may need to talk with your developer to help you locate the sitemap.
It’s possible that the sitemap hasn’t been created or made accessible. You may need to create and submit one yourself using a CMS tool or an online sitemap generator.
Sitemap best practices
A sitemap is a great tool for improving your website’s visibility and ensuring efficient indexing by search engines. Following these best practices will help maximise its effectiveness.
Create a sitemap
Simply creating a sitemap is essential for ensuring that search engines can effectively crawl and index the pages on your website. Here are several options for how you can create one:
Use a CMS plugin
If you use a CMS such as WordPress, we recommend using a plugin such as Yoast to create a sitemap. Yoast will automatically create an up-to-date sitemap of your website when you add new content, such as a new blog or product.
Use an online tool
If you have a hard-coded website without a CMS, an online tool is the easiest option to generate a sitemap. This XML Sitemap Generator tool will create a sitemap for you based on your site structure. As this will not automatically update, you will need to create a new sitemap when new content is added to your website.
Custom scripts
For hard-coded websites, consider working with a developer to create a custom script that generates and updates your sitemap based on the live URLs on your website.
Use smaller sitemaps
If you have a larger website, it’s worth splitting your sitemap into several smaller sitemaps. This involves creating a sitemap index, breaking groups of pages down based on sections.
The Yoast plugin on WordPress does this automatically.
Smaller sitemaps can lead to more efficient crawling by search engines. Using a sitemap index can be beneficial for websites with thousands of pages.
Submit and check your sitemap with Google Search Console
To ensure your sitemap is recognised and used by Google, follow these actions:
Submit your sitemap
- Log in to your Google Search Console account.
- Navigate to the ‘Sitemaps’ section and enter the URL of your sitemap (e.g., https://www.yourwebsite.com/sitemap.xml), and submit it.
- Ensure Google processes your sitemap and identifies all included URLs.
Check for errors
- Use the Coverage report in Google Search Console to check for errors related to URLs in your sitemap.
- Address any errors such as URLs that couldn’t be indexed, crawl issues, or other warnings.
- Check your sitemap as your site grows to maintain the best indexing and crawling efficiency.
Using a sitemap for international SEO
Does your website target people from around the world? If yes, it should serve appropriate content to different users in different regions and languages.
Your sitemap can play a vital role in optimising your website for international SEO. The process involves adding hreflang tags to your sitemap, which is the method of international targeting preferred by many webmasters.
Hreflang tags are crucial for indicating to search engines which version of a web page is intended for which language and region.
Explore more about managing multi-regional and multilingual sites with Google’s guidelines.
Sitemap FAQs
Here are some frequently asked questions (FAQs) we receive about sitemaps:
What should I include in my sitemap?
Include all important URLs that you want search engines to index. This typically includes:
- Main pages (home, about, contact)
- Blog posts
- Product and category pages
- Media content (videos, images)
- Any other significant content
Are there any size limits for sitemaps?
Yes, sitemaps have size limits:
- A single sitemap can contain up to 50,000 URLs.
- The uncompressed file size of a sitemap should not exceed 50MB. If your sitemap exceeds these limits, divide it into multiple sitemaps and use a sitemap index file.
What is the difference between an HTML sitemap and an XML sitemap?
An HTML sitemap is designed for website visitors to use, whereas an XML sitemap is designed for search engines.
What common errors should I avoid with my sitemap?
- Ensure all URLs in the sitemap are working and lead to live pages instead of broken links.
- Avoid including URLs with duplicate content from elsewhere on your website in your sitemap.
- Make sure to include only canonicalised URLs to prevent cannibalization.
- Ensure that hreflang tags are correctly implemented if you’re targeting international audiences.
What is the difference between a sitemap and a robots.txt file?
Both the sitemap and the robots.txt file are used by search engines to understand your website better.
A sitemap provides a list of URLs that you want a search engine to index, and the robots.txt file provides instructions about which pages or areas of your website should not be crawled and indexed.
Need a little help with your website?
Struggling to get your head around sitemaps? Don’t have the time on your hands to optimise your website yourself? Require some additional support to increase your rankings on Google?
Request a free SEO audit for your website today. We’ll help you understand the performance of your site and how you can get more customers online.
Elliot is an SEO Team Leader and is part of the SEO training team, with a background in Business Management & Marketing. He is passionate about ensuring SEO works in harmony with a wider marketing strategy, and dogs.
Hi! I’m Ben, CEO of The SEO Works
Thanks for taking the time to access this resource. We hope you found it helpful. If you’re ready to take the next step in your digital growth, explore our services page or book a free website review. We’re here to help!
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