Introduction
For search engines, a sitemap serves as a directory that holds all the pertinent data about pages, URLs, videos, and other items. It also aids in the SEO crawlers’ ability to recognize and classify a website’s files and pages according to their significance.
Types Of Sitemaps
Sitemaps come in two main types: HTML sitemaps and XML sitemaps. XML sitemaps are further divided into four categories: image sitemaps, video sitemaps, news sitemaps, and mobile sitemaps.
HTML Sitemap
HTML sitemaps are like a map for your website. They help people find their way around easily. They’re usually at the bottom of a page and look like a list of links. While they don’t make your website more popular on search engines, they keep it organised. Many times, they have the same links you see at the top or bottom of your website. These maps were more important when it was harder to have links at the top of a page. Some maps also have links to special pages that can bring in more money. These pages might not be easy to find using the normal links at the top or bottom.
XML Sitemap
An XML sitemap helps search engine crawlers understand a website more effectively. It provides key details about the URLs, including their priority, which can range from 0.0 to 1.0. The sitemap also informs crawlers about the last modification date of each page and how often changes are made. There are several types of XML sitemaps, such as:
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Image Sitemap
To make sure that the images on your website show up in Google Image Search results, you need to create an image sitemap. Additional attributes that you can add to the image include a title, a caption, and a geolocation.
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Video Sitemap
Video sitemaps are like a map for your videos. They help search engines find your videos. They also help search engines understand what your videos are about. You can add information like the video’s address, picture, name, description, where the video is stored, and where the video player is located. This information is all in the video sitemap.
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News Sitemap
A news sitemap is designed to label and organise news websites. There are certain restrictions, such as not including live articles older than 2 days and a limit of 1,000 URLs per sitemap. If a site has more than 1,000 URLs, multiple sitemaps can be created and managed with a sitemap index file. The primary goal of a news sitemap is to improve the chances of your articles being featured in Google’s news section.
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Mobile Sitemap
A Mobile Sitemap is utilised if your website is modified or developed specifically or only for certain mobile devices.
Conclusion
If you know how to use XML and HTML sitemaps, you can make your website better for search engines and easier for people to use. This will help your website get more visitors and make them happy.
