What is a site map?

A sitemap is an overview of the structure of your website, showing the pages where important content can be found. The traditional map is a static HTML file , which shows the first and second levels of your site’s structure. This way your visitor immediately sees where he can find certain content.

Over the years, the sitemap has become a tool for the search engines so that they can find and index all parts of your website. That is why these days it is made as an XML file for search engines, easy for the spiders to read.

While some browsers can display the XML file in comprehensible form on your website, it is still recommended to offer both types of sitemaps (HTML and XML) to satisfy both search engines and your visitors.

Why is a sitemap important?

Faster indexation

Without a sitemap, your site’s content will be indexed based on the backlinks to your site from other sources. For example, if a popular site links to a posting on your site, Google will visit that page and add it to its index. However, if the search engine does not find a sitemap, it will not know that there is other content on your site. If, on the other hand, the search engine does find one, you have a better chance that your other pages will also be indexed. In addition, a new page that you create and add to your sitemap is picked up faster by the search engines. More pages, picked up faster, and therefore a higher ranking in the search engines.

Show yourself what is important

If you have a complex website with a lot of content or a rich archive of your content, your sitemap tells the search engine which content needs to be indexed. Do not include pages that should not be indexed in the folder and include the meta tag “noindex”.

Lower server load

With the sitemap you give the search engine bots a nicely mapped out route to browse and index your site. Without a sitemap, the spiders will haphazardly scan pages and links, causing additional server load. The sitemap therefore means less tax, which is beneficial for your hosting costs!

What criteria must a good sitemap meet?

Make the overview of your site concise and clear
Design a route that the search engine robots can easily follow
Create a text link to every page of your site
Show your visitor immediately where he will find certain information
Use keywords in the anchor text of the link to the associated page
Link from your homepage to your sitemap, so that the search engines are immediately on the right path
With smaller sites you can include every page in the sitemap, but with larger sites this would lead to very long lists. SEO experts recommend between 25 and 40 links on your sitemap. Over 99 links are suspicious to the search engines – they make your website look like a link farm!
All pages on your sitemap must also contain a link back to the sitemap
Adjust your sitemap when you make changes to your website!

Are there tools to generate a sitemap?

Basically you create an HTML sitemap in the form you want; this can be a static HTML page or a dynamic one, driven by, for example, a PHP script. Fortunately, there are countless tools on the web to create a sitemap.

The better sitemap generators will even create sitemaps in multiple forms: an XML sitemap, an RSS-based map, a text-based map, and an HTML-based map.

General tools: Xml Sitemapgenerator.org or XML Sitemaps.com
WordPress: Google Sitemaps Plugin
Joomla: Xmap plugin
Drupal: Simple XML Sitemap Plugin
Magento: Easy XML Sitemap Generator or create the map manually with these instructions

How do you go about working with your sitemap?

The instructions may differ depending on the tool you are using. But in general you proceed like this:

Enter the full URL of your website
Configure optional parameters if desired
Submit your request
Wait for the sitemap generator to send its spider to your website and give you the results
Download the results of the XML sitemap; make some adjustments if necessary.
Upload the sitemap to the root folder of your website
Go to the Google Webmaster Tools (or similar tools for other search engines) and submit your sitemap URL.