XML Sitemap

What is an XML Sitemap?

An XML Sitemap is a structured file (typically sitemap.xml) that lists URLs of a website along with metadata (e.g., last modified date, priority) to help search engines like Google discover and index pages efficiently.

Technical Structure

A basic XML Sitemap follows this schema:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9">
  <url>
    <loc>https://example.com/page1</loc>
    <lastmod>2023-10-01</lastmod>
    <changefreq>weekly</changefreq>
    <priority>0.8</priority>
  </url>
</urlset>

Why Use an XML Sitemap?

Improves crawlability for large/dynamic websites.
Prioritizes critical pages (via <priority> and <changefreq>).
Handles duplicate content by specifying canonical URLs.
Required for Google News and video/image SEO.

How to Generate an XML Sitemap?

Automated Tools:

CMS plugins (e.g., Yoast SEO for WordPress).
Crawlers like Screaming Frog or SiteBulb.

Custom Scripts: Python (xml.etree.ElementTree) or JavaScript.
Dynamic Sitemaps: For frequently updated content (e.g., e-commerce).

Best Practices

Limit to 50,000 URLs per file (split into multiple sitemaps if needed).
Submit via Google Search Console.
Exclude non-indexable pages (e.g., /admin/).
Use lastmod accurately to reduce unnecessary crawls.

Advanced: Sitemap Index Files

For large sites, use a sitemap index (sitemap-index.xml) to group multiple sitemaps:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<sitemapindex xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9">
  <sitemap>
    <loc>https://example.com/sitemap-posts.xml</loc>
  </sitemap>
</sitemapindex>