What is a Sitemap and what is it for? Practical examples and real cases

With practical examples we explain what a sitemap is, what it is used for and how to create one. Optimize your site with our step-by-step guide.

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) includes a wide variety of strategies to support your page’s presence in the SERP. Today, we’ll look at what is a sitemap, how it’s created, and, above all, why they’re a must for any solid SEO strategy.

Let’s start by putting the meat on the grill (or the portobello mushrooms, for vegetarians). A sitemap is a file that breaks down the content of a website and indicates the relationships between its different pages.

To put it more clearly, imagine your sitemap as a travel guide. Google is on vacation on your website and, to ensure an optimized experience, you tell it the best places to visit.

Although, to be precise, rather than a travel guide, the sitemap forms a “map” of the website. A rather unconventional one, though. It usually looks like a structured list of elements in code (in the case of XML sitemaps). It can also consist (in the case of HTML sitemaps) of a table or a series of sections with links, or even a list of those links.

A sitemap is a file that breaks down the content of a website and indicates the relationships between its different pages.

What is a Sitemap and what is its importance in SEO?

Now, how does this relate to SEO? Let’s see, there are billions of web pages. When we do a search, Google crawls all those pages to find the site that best answers what we’re looking for. But first, it crawls their sitemaps. 

These, if well organized, help Google identify you more quickly and, if it determines that your content is suitable, include you in its search results. Of course, to appear in Google’s search results, a website must be indexed in its system. And sitemaps help with this. 

The logic behind sitemaps is, in a very general way, the same as that behind Tinder profiles. By including three or four tags from a list of interests, it is easier for a user to decide whether to match or not. Of course, you can also read the person’s bibliography or stalk them on social media before matching, but this takes longer. The same would be true if Google goes through a website page by page, either to index it or to include it in its SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages ).

Including a sitemap therefore helps Google get an idea of ​​what a certain website looks like. If it likes what it sees, it will match and send a bot to read the page. The bot can do so quickly, using the sitemap as a guide. It will then ultimately decide whether to index it and, consequently, whether to include it in its SERPs. 

As if that weren’t enough, thanks to the sitemap, Google will index your pages and include them in search results not as it sees fit, but as it sees fit. By identifying the most important pages on a website, a sitemap tells Google what order to follow when indexing them.

Types of Sitemaps and their uses

As we mentioned above, there are different types of sitemaps. Each one has different specific functions, although, in general, they always contribute to facilitating indexing in Google and improving search results. Let’s see what they are.

XML Sitemap

When we talk about sitemaps, we are usually referring to XML sitemaps. These consist of files that use the XML (Extensible Markup Language) format to list the pages (URLs) of a website. They are specifically intended for SEO optimization, that is, they serve as a “map” of the site for search engines. 

“Search engines” is plural because, although they are usually associated with Google, XML sitemaps can be used with other search engines, such as Bing and Yahoo. In this way, they can exponentially increase the visibility of a website.

More specifically, this type of sitemap is usually in the form of a list . Each website URL that appears in the sitemap has specific tags (such as <url>, <lastmod> or <loc>). These not only help structure the information, but also tell search engines how to use and interpret its content.

XML sitemaps are used to ensure that search engines take into account all pages on a site that are included in the listing. Even those that do not have internal links. This makes them especially beneficial for the visibility of massive websites or those with complex navigation structures.

There is one last point to consider regarding XML sitemaps. What is it? They can only contain up to 50,000 URLs , and cannot exceed 50 MB in gzip (i.e. compressed) format. What do you do when this is a limitation? The best thing to do is to create multiple sitemaps and organize them in an index.

HTML Sitemap

A few weeks ago a client came to him complaining that users who visited his website never found the pages where he promoted his new products. He is very fond of the design of his website and would not even consider the first option we gave him (modifying it). He loved the second option though: creating an HTML sitemap.

And search engines are not the only ones that may need a map of websites to quickly find certain content. That’s when this type of sitemap comes into play.

HTML sitemaps are, in a sense, pages within a website that contain links to all (or most) of its pages. Like XML sitemaps, they are hierarchical and categorized to better guide the user. Sometimes, even the connections between pages are shown to simplify their interpretation.

They are an ideal way to improve the user experience in a short time, especially if navigation with standard menus is not optimized or if the site is too large. They can also be used, for example, to organize blog entries or guide the user to specific or updated content.

This is a good thing in more ways than one: by helping users find what they need, it indirectly leads to improvements in SEO. A user who doesn’t get frustrated searching for a page is less likely to leave the website. And a website with a lower bounce rate (i.e. abandonment rate) is usually more likely to rank well in the SERPs.

As we mentioned, they can have different formats, such as lists, tables, or sections. On the other hand, although it is written in HTML ( HyperText Markup Language ), users will see it as any other web page, with links that they can open. For developers, however, the document will include standard HTML tags. Some of them can be <ul> and <li> (for lists and list items) or <body> (for the visible content of the page, where the lists and links will go).

Other types of Sitemaps

Other types of sitemaps include specialized sitemaps. These are those that record specific content within a website. These are usually video, news, and image sitemaps. However, it is also quite common to find review and product sitemaps.

In most cases, they are written in XML format. However, they can sometimes be developed in JSON format (especially if they represent structured data) or HTML. All of them are used to position web pages in filtered searches. For example, when you select the “images” option in Google or Yahoo search engines. Thus, the specific uses of each one are:

• Video sitemap: Includes data about the videos on a website. These include the video title and URL, its duration, a short description, and the category it is in. They can also be created in RSS, MRSS, and Atom 1.0 formats, similar to XML.
• News sitemap: Used on news sites. Contains information about the date of publication of articles, their title, language, name of the newspaper, among other things.
• Image Sitemap: Makes images on a website more visible to search engines. It also presents metadata such as the alternate title, the URL where it is hosted, and the title of each image.
• Product sitemap: These are often found on online businesses and web commerce sites. They include information about the products being offered, such as their name, a short description, how much they cost, and their availability.
• Review Sitemap: These provide information about the reviews that a website contains, such as what their content is about, the name of the author, the date they were published, and their rating.

How to create a Sitemap?

The most delicious smell in the world is already coming from the grill, but the meat (or portobello mushrooms) are not ready yet. It’s time to turn things around. In other words, let’s look at the flip side of sitemaps: how they are made.

Basically, there are three ways to create a sitemap : with online tools, manually or using plugins for CMS (Content Management System). Choosing one or the other will depend on both the structure and the size of your website.

For example, if your site has just a few pages, creating a sitemap manually is not too demanding. For sites with several dozen URLs, an automated tool will be the best option. On the other hand, if you use a content management system, you may find it more convenient to use the system’s plugin.

Create a Sitemap with online tools

Let’s see how to create a sitemap using online tools. The first step, clearly, is to select a tool that suits your needs. Some options are XML-Sitemaps.com, A1 Sitemap Generator, and Dyno Mapper.

These tools usually follow a similar process, allowing you to generate a sitemap in a simple and effective way. However, each one has characteristics that make it more or less suitable for certain users.

Let’s see how to create a sitemap using XML-Sitemaps.com. Why this tool and not another? Because of its intuitive operation, its support for image and video sitemaps, and its automatic update and error reporting options, it is our favorite. 

• Once you log in to XML-Sitemaps.com, the first step is to enter your website URL into the text bar. To avoid confusion, it says (by default) “Your Website URL.”

• To configure your sitemap options, click on the “More options” entry. This will allow you to decide whether you want the sitemap to include <lastmod> tags and whether the system will automatically calculate page priority. The more clicks it takes to get to a page from the main page, the lower its priority will be.

You can also define the values ​​for the refresh rate of a page by clicking the “Do not specify” option in the list of options.

• Click the “Start” button. The system will automatically start crawling your site’s URLs and compile an XML sitemap file with all the information it retrieves.

• Once the tool has finished crawling the URLs, the sitemap will be generated. To access it, you will need to click on “View sitemap details”.

• The next step is to download the file and (as XML-Sitemaps.com tells you) upload it to your website’s domain. You can do this using an FTP client (file transfer software) such as Cyberduck or FileZilla. Another option is to use your server’s file manager directly. It should look something like this: https://www.yoursite.com/sitemap.xml.

However, if you feel anxious (or just want to check that everything is working properly), you can access your sitemap by clicking “View full XML sitemap”.

And this, believe it or not, is all.

Create a Sitemap Manually

Describe the process of creating a sitemap manually, including code examples.

Another option, not as quick, but which may allow you to be more precise when creating your sitemap, is to do it manually. Of course, it is important that you have knowledge of XML, HTML, RSS, or other markup languages. Otherwise, the procedure itself does not have so many steps:

• Open a text editor. Some options are Notepad++ (for more basic projects), XML Copy Editor (specific for XML),  Brackets (allows you to preview in real time) or applications like Rythm Software’s code editor.
• Start writing your sitemap code. You need to start (to comply with XML rules) with the XML declaration. On the next line, insert the < urlset > tag, and then start entering your sitemap entries.

• Each entry in a sitemap (i.e. each page you enter) begins with the <url> tag and ends with the </url> tag. Between these will be other tags that specify the characteristics of each page. A single-page sitemap would look like this:

So you can read it, let’s see what each label means:

• <?xml version=”1.0″ encoding=”UTF-8″?> This is the XML “declaration”. It is used to define the standard and encoding used. This way, any XML parser will be able to interpret the document.
• The < urlset > and </ urlset > tags open and close the sitemap. They also refer to the protocol used.
• For their part, <url> and </url> encapsulate the information of each URL that is entered. 
• <loc>http://www.example.com/</loc> is used to enter the URL location. That is, its https address. The maximum number of characters accepted is 2,048.
• The <lastmod>YYYY-MM-DD</lastmod> tag indicates the last time the page was updated. It follows the year-month-day format.
• <changefreq>xxxx</changefreq> lets you tell search engines how often the content on your page will be changed. It accepts values ​​like “always,” “daily,” “never,” and more.
• Lastly,  <priority>0.5</priority> is used to set the priority of a URL over all others. By default, it is set to 0.5. However, you can increase it to 1 to indicate that a page should be given maximum priority, or lower it to 0.0.

4. Repeat the code line as many times as necessary. Don’t forget to open and close each entry using <url> and </url> . When you’re done entering them, close the sitemap with </urlset>.
5. Save the file using the name sitemap.xml.
6. Using an FTP client or file manager, upload the sitemap.xml to the root of your website.

Using plugins to generate sitemaps

There are some content management systems, such as Wix and Shopify, that generate sitemaps automatically. However, WordPress, the most popular CMS, does this through plugins. Two of the most recommended are Yoast SEO and Google XML Sitemaps.

While Google XML Sitemaps is geared only towards creating sitemaps, WordPress’ Yoast SEO has more comprehensive features, allowing you to handle various aspects of an SEO strategy and making it a bit more convenient. That’s why we’re going to use it to show you how to create a WordPress Yoast SEO sitemap.

So, the steps to follow are:

1. Install the plugin. This can be done from the Admin Panel.
2. Activate it. Open the SEO option, within it, click on “General” and then on “Features”.
3. Under “Features”, enable the “XML Sitemaps” option.
4. To define the update frequency and priority of your sitemap pages, go to “Settings” and, once there, click on “XML-Sitemap”. Then, set the parameters you prefer.
5. The sitemap will be generated immediately and uploaded to the root of your website. Check that everything is OK by looking for it at https://www.yoursite.com/sitemap_index.xml.

How to submit your Sitemap to Google Search Console?

To incorporate a sitemap as part of your SEO strategies, it is crucial that you submit the sitemap URL to the search engines you prefer. Why? Because only then will your pages be indexed in the search engine and (in the case of Google) appear in search results. 

To submit your sitemap to Google, it’s best to do so via Google Search Console. One of the great advantages of this tool is that it also notifies you of any errors that your sitemap URLs may have. For example, duplicate content or broken links. This way, you can quickly correct them and keep your sitemap optimized.

So, what are the steps to follow to submit a sitemap to Google Search Console? Let’s take a look:

1. Add your website to Google Search Console (using the “Add Property” option) and verify it. Select the property you want to add a sitemap to.
2. Click on the “Sitemaps” option in the left menu (below “Index”). Where it says “Add a new sitemap” enter the URL of the sitemap you generated. This should be: https://www.yoursite.com/sitemap.xml
3. Press the “Submit” button. If everything is in order, Google will send you a notification. It will also notify you if there are any problems with the URLs and show you the status of the sitemap.

How to view a website’s Sitemap?

To check that a sitemap has been uploaded correctly and, at the same time, verify that it has no errors, there is more than one way to follow. The most direct way is to enter the sitemap URL (https://www.yoursite.com/sitemap.xml) in the search bar. If the URL works, you will be taken to the XML sitemap file.

On the other hand, if you are looking for a sitemap whose address you do not know, the easiest way is to try a standard URL. What do we mean by this? That you add one of these endings to the site’s domain:

• https://www.example.com/sitemap.xml
• https://www.example.com/sitemap_index.xml
• https://www.example.com/sitemap/

If none of those URLs work, you can try looking for the correct URL in the site’s robots.txt file. If it’s not there either… well, chances are it’s not uploaded.

A third option (if all else fails) is to validate your sitemap URL with tools like Google Search Console or XML Sitemap Validator. The latter will also tell you any errors in your sitemap.

What other ways are there to check that your sitemap is error-free? And, while we’re at it, what other things do you need to check? Let’s take a look:

• Tools like SEO Site Checkup will help you make sure that the XML text in your file is free of any issues. All you have to do is enter your site’s URL and click the appropriate button.
• To check your sitemap indexing on Google, it’s best to use Google Search Console. This way, you’ll be able to see if there are any crawling errors that are keeping your site out of the SERPs.
• It’s important to constantly check which URLs are included in your sitemap, especially if you update it automatically: no one is perfect, not even web tools.

Sitemap Examples

Above we saw some generic examples of XML sitemaps. Now that you have an idea of ​​what to expect from this type of file, let’s see what they look like once they are loaded with all the information about a website. And, just to make sure, let’s also look at an example of an HTML sitemap.

XML Sitemap Example

Structure is key in XML sitemaps and this sitemap is a good example of this.

If you enlarge the image (or have a good pair of glasses handy) you will be able to make out almost all of the tags we mentioned above. They all encapsulate the information, so that it is not difficult for the bot to read it. In other words, it complies with the rules of XML: opening and closing tags and an XML declaration at the top.

When you enlarge the image, you will see that the first entry, which corresponds to Zara’s main page, has a priority of 1.0. This shows that this is an example of a correctly ranked sitemap. The remaining URLs are within the same category (the help section) so they have a similar priority level: 0.8.

You’ll also notice that the <changefreq> tag says “daily.” This doesn’t necessarily mean that pages are updated daily. However, it does act as a “hint” to search engines about how often they should crawl the page. This helps to cover future  updates somewhat .

Finally, what really adds a touch of style? The little arrows next to each <url> tag that allow you to open and close each entry to simplify the file. 

HTML Sitemap Example

Secondly, we have an example of an HTML sitemap as seen by users. This map corresponds to the website GEARRICE, which includes tips and tutorials on various topics. So diverse, that a sitemap is needed to find the information you are looking for without complications.

As you can see, this is a site map where the structure is well defined through the graphic resources available. Each entry is a link that leads, first, to large sections of the site ordered alphabetically (“Tech”, “Gadget and tools”, “PC and laptop” and “Smartphone and tablet”). On a lower level, some subsections are presented (“The Animal World”, “Pets”, “Food and Drink”). The next level includes links to the different pages that the site contains.

This simplifies the path users must take to get to the “TechWorld” page, for example. Instead of successively searching for the section of interest within “Tech” and “Gadget and tolos” they can go to the sitemap and click on the URL they want to go to.

Common mistakes when creating a sitemap and how to avoid them

A while back, a client came to us hating SEO with all his heart. He said he had tried everything and was not getting good results. The first thing we did was a technical audit of his website. What did we find? A bit of everything, but the critical errors were concentrated in one area: his website’s sitemap.

The problem with this is that a poorly done sitemap can decrease the ability of search engines to index the site correctly and, consequently, crawl it. Some of the errors we found in our client’s sitemaps were (because they are now fixed):

• Prioritization without an order. Although the sitemap file included <priority> tags , they were not assigned in a logical manner. As a result, the search engine was skipping some of the site’s most important pages and focusing on others.
• Non-canonical URLs. The sitemap included multiple versions of the same page, with different URL types. One page, for example, was listed with four different URLs: http://, https://, www and non-www. To fix this, we cleaned up the sitemap of non-canonical versions and set up 301 redirects for the duplicate versions.
• Out-of-date sitemap. Our client came to us in late 2023, with a 2021 sitemap. In those two years, their website had incorporated a fair amount of content. However, the sitemap had not been updated, so it was not indexed. After manually updating it, we incorporated an automatic update system, which made the sitemap immediately show the changes that were made on each page of the site.
• Broken links and blocked URLs. Some of the URLs in the file we received from our client led to 404 pages. This, in addition to consuming site resources, frustrated customers, negatively affecting their reaction to the site. Other URLs were blocked by the robots.txt file, which prevented search engines from crawling them. What did we do? First, we checked all the links and removed the broken ones. Second, we reviewed the robots.txt file and adjusted its rules so that the URLs in the sitemap could be crawled.
• Errors in XML formatting. We’ve all missed a letter when typing. But when we’re talking about XML files, one letter too many or too few can make all our efforts worthless. Badly closed tags, forgetting the XML declaration, syntax errors… Anything can happen. The best way to prevent this and not upload a file with errors? Run it through an XML validator to check that nothing is out of place. 

Tools and Resources to Improve Your Sitemap

If the meat (or portobello mushrooms) lacked salt during cooking, we can add it later. Something similar happens with sitemaps: the story does not end when they are uploaded to the server, but they must be further optimized. At least to obtain the best possible result. 

Every self-respecting griller has his or her favorite seasonings. And every sitemap creator does too. Some of the tools and resources that can be useful for creating and, above all, optimizing your sitemaps are:

• Dyno Mapper is a paid online tool that allows you to create XML and visual sitemaps. Its features include tools to audit the content of your sites. However, it can be somewhat complex for users who do not have experience in web design.
• A1 Sitemap Generator – This is a desktop application, ideal for creating sitemaps for large websites – there is no page limit. It includes several customization options and supports various sitemap formats. Its disadvantage? It is not as intuitive as other tools and, in addition, it is paid.
• Sitebulb is an SEO audit tool that can also be used to create XML sitemaps. In this sense, it is ideal for sites that are constantly being optimized or are large in size, as it also has no URL limit. Of course, as its functions go far beyond creating sitemaps, it may be a bit excessive for users with basic needs or small sites.
• XML-Sitemaps.com – This online tool automatically generates XML sitemaps. Its operation is quite simple and allows you to configure data such as page priority and update frequency. It has a free version with up to 500 URLs and paid versions. Its major drawback, however, is that its features do not include integration with Google Search Console. 
• Screaming Frog SEO Spider – This app requires a download to use. It offers SEO tools such as website crawling and of course sitemap generation. It is perfect for complex projects as it allows you to control the sitemap from start to finish and supports large sites. It can also be used to analyze the sitemap and detect errors. What are its drawbacks? On the one hand, it can be a bit complex to use. On the other hand, its free version supports only 500 URLs.

Sitemap Validation Tools

We’ve already mentioned a couple of times how important it is to validate your sitemaps . But, since the third time’s a charm, let us share with you some tools that can help you review their structure and content. 

• SEO Site Checkup – This online SEO analysis tool features the ability to quickly validate XML sitemaps. It offers detailed reports on a website, as well as recommendations for improving it, and it’s not complicated to use. But we said that nobody is perfect, and SEO Site Checkup isn’t either: its free version doesn’t let you perform all the analyses you want. 
• Google Search Console – To thoroughly validate your sites, the most reliable option is Google Search Console. With it, you can access very detailed reports on your site’s indexing and the status of your sitemap. It allows you to identify errors and fix them, and, if that weren’t enough, it’s free.
• W3C Markup Validation Service – While this tool was not designed to validate sitemaps, it can help you ensure that the XML format is error-free. It does not, however, identify specific SEO and indexing issues, or issues with the structure or functionality of the sitemap. But since it analyzes the XML text in detail, is free, and has a simple interface, its disadvantages are not that significant. 

Your sitemap, in 1, 2, 3… 

The meat (or portobello mushrooms) is served. You now know everything you need to create your own sitemaps or improve the ones you already have. From the different types of sitemaps that exist and the tools that can help you generate sitemaps more or less automatically, to how to upload them to Google Search Console, what mistakes you have to avoid and some ways to solve them.

Do you still have any questions? We’ll answer them in the comments 👇 Still have questions? Go ahead and create your sitemaps and then tell us about your experience! We’ll read your comments!

However, if you think that an optimized sitemap can boost your projects, but it seems like too much work, don’t worry! We’ll take care of the sitemap and you can enjoy it. 

We are Enjoy minder, the marketing specialist agency you needed in your life. We have a team of web positioning professionals, trained to cover all the fronts of a good digital marketing campaign.

Innovation and commitment to each project are our pillars. We seek to offer creative, but always informed, solutions to your requirements. Do you want a sitemap that lives up to your website? Take it for granted. Is there anything else you need? Contact us and tell us how we can help you. With a good map, everything is a treasure to be found. You already know that your project is one. Count on Enjoy Minder to let the world know.