What is a sitemap and why it is needed ?

What is a sitemap?

A sitemap is a list of pages of a web site accessible to crawlers or users. It can be either a document in any form used as a planning tool for Web design, or a Web page that lists the pages on a Web site, typically organized in hierarchical fashion.

A sitemap informs search engines that individual pages on your site are new or updated and are available for crawling. The sitemap protocol consists of an XML file that includes your website URLs and three other optional pieces of information for each page :

• How often the URL is updated.
• The last time the URL was updated.
• A priority of the URL relative to the other pages on the site.

Sitemaps help ensure all new and difficult-to-find pages are indexed quickly and completely, and are particularly useful for websites that are difficult for search engines to crawl and index effectively. Your website benefits from applying a sitemap if it :

• Is modified frequently.
• Uses Javascript of Flash® for navigation or content display.
• Contains a large database or archive of pages that may be accessible only through a search function.

NOTE: Using a sitemap does not ensure that search engines will pick up every page of your site, but it does provide hints for search engines to more intelligently crawl your site.

Why sitemap is needed?

Sitemaps are the roadmap for search engines. Sitemaps enable search engines to much more efficiently index your website because, rather than having to check every single file and folder in yoru website to see if it is something to index or not, they simply follow the directions in the sitemap. Also, Google and Yahoo have special tools that use sitemaps to help them. They provide unique codes that you can add to your index page that identify you to them and help them help you.

If the site structure is essentially flat and there is a link to every page from every other page (often the case with microsites that have no second level navigation) you probably don’t need to provide users with a sitemap. The main navigation provides the same information.

If, however, there is a second level of hierarchy and those second level pages cannot be reached directly from every other page (i.e. you have to go to a particular section before you can see the sub-navigation for that section) there is often benefit in providing a sitemap from an accessibility point of view.

Types of sitemaps :

1. XML Sitemap
2. HTML Sitemap
3. ROR Sitemap
4. Urllist