What is a Sitemap: Structure and Functionality

An SEO factor that can be overlooked is the XML sitemap, which is responsible for providing search engine web crawlers with information on the content of your pages. 

When done right, it becomes a powerful aide in boosting your website’s visibility. Whether you own a business in Kenya or anywhere else, an XML website sitemap serves to bring your users closer to the content that will help them most.

In this article, we look into the topic in detail, answering questions like: what does an XML sitemap exactly entail, why is it essential for SEO performance, and how can you create and submit one for your website. We will also differentiate XML sitemaps from their HTML counterparts and reveal how they support search engines in navigating your site.

What is an XML sitemap?

To determine the order of search results, Google’s index bots scan each website, making a list of the site structure and relevant content that can be used to answer user queries. Your XML sitemap serves to inform search bots of that information quickly.

Definition and explanation of an XML sitemap

At its core, your XML sitemap file is a roadmap of your website that guides search engine crawlers through all the essential pages you want to be indexed. But what is an XML sitemap, precisely?

The term XML stands for Extensible Markup Language – a standard, machine-readable format consumed by search engines to understand your website’s structure better.

Unlike a traditional table of contents made with human readers in mind, the XML sitemap file is specifically designed for search engines. It lists all the relevant URLs (aka locations) on the website, providing additional information about each  URL address in the form of metadata.

It can include when the URL was last updated, how often it changes, and its importance relative to other URLs on the site.

How does XML differ from HTML sitemaps?

Both XML and HTML sitemaps are meant to guide website visitors through your pages, but their intended audiences differ. 

An HTML sitemap is designed for human visitors, helping users navigate your website’s structure in order to find what they are looking for. Think of it as the table of contents in a book with all the parts and chapters.

Just as you would want book readers to find what concerns them easily, HTML sitemaps encourage better practices for internal links pointing to pages within your own site. It can help distribute link equity across your site, making it a beneficial factor for SEO, but it’s not beneficial for elements like menus, footer links, and categories.

An XML sitemap, on the other hand, is more of a technical SEO factor, because it essentially “tells” search engines directly to hasten the process of indexing only SEO-relevant landing pages. Having both an XML and an HTML sitemap page is recommended, as they serve different purposes and audiences.

Basic structure and format of XML sitemaps

In terms of structure, an XML sitemap file consists of a list of URLs, each wrapped in a location tag with the exact page address. For each URL, this file can provide metadata about when it was last modified, its priority relative to other pages, and how frequently it changes.

Nowadays, almost any content management system (CMS) can easily generate sitemaps in an XML format, ready to be gobbled up by search engines and extensible enough to accommodate future changes or additions. 

To further improve the likelihood of certain elements appearing in relevant search results, there are dedicated sitemap components where each one communicates different details about rich media content on your site’s URLs.

For example, it could be an image sitemap, a video sitemap, or a schemas sitemap, with the last one being a set of rules generally used within a sitemap. Image and video sitemaps, on the other hand, aim to help Google find and understand the content that fails to make a search appearance due to its visual format.

Despite its seemingly intricate nature, an XML sitemap adheres to a simple and standardized format. Starting with an opening URL set tag and concluding with a closing URL set tag, between them, you enclose each web page or URL on your site within its own set of URL tags, making it look like a list of entries. 

Each entry includes several pieces of information:

• <loc> tag. Short for location, it contains the absolute URL of the page or, simply, the unique address where the page can be found.
  
• <lastmod> tag. Indicates when the page was last modified. Search engines crawl, using this information to determine if a revisit is necessary to index new content.
  
• <changefreq> tag. Provides a general idea of how often the content on a specific URL is expected to change.
  
• <priority> tag. Denotes the priority of a particular URL relative to other URL’s on your site. The value to input here is a number between 0.0 (lowest) and 1.0 (highest).

Here is how that would look in an example XML sitemap file:

<?xml version=”1.0″ encoding=”UTF-8″?>

<urlset xmlns=”http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9“>

    <url>

        <loc>https://www.example.com/</loc>

        <lastmod>2077-07-26</lastmod>

        <changefreq>monthly</changefreq>

        <priority>1.0</priority>

    </url>

    <url>

        <loc>https://www.example.com/page1</loc>

        <lastmod>2077-07-25</lastmod>

        <changefreq>weekly</changefreq>

        <priority>0.8</priority>

    </url>

    <url>

        <loc>https://www.example.com/page2</loc>

        <lastmod>2077-07-24</lastmod>

        <changefreq>daily</changefreq>

        <priority>0.7</priority>

    </url>

</urlset>

In this example, we begin with the XML declaration line. It indicates the version, which is 1.0, and the character set used in the document.

UTF-8 (Unicode Transformational Format – 8-bit) is a popular encoding scheme that supports various characters from different scripts and is universally accepted across platforms and languages. 

Then, we continue with an XML name-space identifier for the sitemaps protocol, defined at the latest version by sitemaps.org, which appears to be 0.9 for the moment. It helps search engines understand what type the XML document is, as well as the specific set of rules that govern its structure and content.

As you go down the list, each URL block represents a different page on the example.com website. You can see we have used the tags according to what each one indicates.

Now, let’s see why you must understand all this and how it can help your SEO strategy.

Why is an XML sitemap important for SEO?

An XML sitemap extends beyond a mere listing of web pages – its SEO value is in communicating directly with search engines, enabling your site’s pages to be included in search results sooner, bumping your site’s visibility, and boosting traffic.

Benefits of having an XML sitemap for search engine crawlers

Search engine crawlers are like digital spiders that traverse the internet, hopping from one link to another indexing web pages along their path. An XML sitemap offers crawlers a complete list of pages to examine – those can be all your pages or particular ones you deem relevant.

In instances where some pages are not adequately linked to others or you are looking to adequately cover alternate language versions of your site, having multiple sitemaps to act as a safety net can make sure all your pages, including any missing ones, are accounted for and indexed. This is a way to compensate for weak internal linking.

How do XML sitemaps help search engines discover and determine indexable pages on your site?

New websites and sites with dynamic content that have few external links or lack external links altogether can usually benefit the most from using a page sitemap. Search engine crawlers interpret information from XML website sitemaps as instructions for indexing, including existing pages that might not be easily discoverable independently. 

Along with the pages listed in an XML file, valuable metadata is included, such as when the page was last updated, how frequently it is changed, and its relative importance concerning others on the same site. That is what search engines read out to make a quick decision during a sitemap index.

Importance of XML sitemaps for large or complex websites

Large websites with a complex structure use sitemap files as a root directory, simplifying the discovery and indexing. Sites with archived pages that aren’t easily reachable via links from the homepage also benefit in this regard.

For instance, the dynamic nature of an ecommerce site suggests that it frequently adds new pages for new products and removes old ones, making it challenging for search engines to keep up. 

You can further implement customizations so that your sitemap tells Google to prioritize particular pages over others. That way, they can be crawled more frequently or recognized as more important in search results.

And with that, the question of how to create a sitemap arises.

How to create an XML sitemap?

To make the process of creating an XML sitemap straightforward, even for those without extensive technical knowledge, we have boiled it down to tools and methods, considerations, and common mistakes.

Tools and methods for generating an XML sitemap

Nowadays, many CMS and website software generate an index sitemap and make the process easier than ever. For example, integrating the Yoast SEO plugin with  your WordPress dashboard can allow you to do it automatically by listing a predesignated number of articles published, allowing you to keep an individual sitemap updated with fresh articles.

Those not using a CMS or prefer a more hands-on approach can utilize an online sitemap generator. These tools crawl your website much like a search engine, generating an XML sitemap on the pages they find. Popular sitemap generators are Google’s WordPress plugin, XML-sitemaps.com, Screaming Frog, Yoast SEO, and others.

Keep in mind that If you use an online generator, you have to add some missing or archived pages to your sitemap manually for the list to be truly exhaustive.

Considerations for including or excluding pages or URLs

A well-structured XML sitemap includes the most relevant pages and excludes irrelevant ones, such as archived or duplicate pages (which has to be taken care of anyway). 

Websites, and larger ones in particular, often have a lot of new pages being added to the existing pages, so keeping your website’s content clean and SEO-friendly is a big denominator in the role an XML sitemap can play for you.

Although there is no limit to the number of URLs an XML sitemap can contain, Google recommends keeping each XML sitemap to a maximum of 50,000 URLs. If your site exceeds this number, you can use multiple sitemap files organized under a single XML sitemap index file or compress your existing map.

Common mistakes to avoid when creating an XML sitemap

As with any technical process, you can encounter common pitfalls with creating sitemaps that are entirely avoidable when you know what to be on the lookout for. 

A common mistake would be considered forgetting to remove broken links or non-existent pages after generating your XML sitemap. It can confuse search engine bots and may even affect your site’s performance, so to avoid that, thoroughly check your pages before creating the sitemap.

Another of the sitemap errors you could face has a chance of occurring when your site changes. Whenever you add, remove, or significantly modify a page on your site, your sitemap should be updated to reflect these changes.

Take note that while an XML sitemap acts as a navigation board for crawlers, it is not a replacement for a well-structured website that provides a user-friendly experience. And if your website is a large one, your best friend is a dynamic XML sitemap, which doesn’t require you to manually keep all the important pages synced.

How to submit an XML sitemap to search engines?

Once you have created your XML sitemap, the next step is to submit it to search engines so that they are informed of its existence and location.

Best practices for submitting an XML sitemap to search engines

From the several ways that come up for submitting, the most widely adopted one is directly through a search engine’s webmaster tools. 

For Google, this would be Google Search Console. After adding your website to it, you can submit your sitemap URL through the Sitemaps report. Visit the Submitted sitemaps section to verify your maps, and look for the “Sitemap index processed successfully” report.

Each sitemap link serves to ensure that Google knows exactly where to find your sitemap, enabling you to monitor its status and any errors that may arise during the crawling process. 

Bing also has a similar feature in its Bing Webmaster Tools, allowing you to submit sitemap files. Given Bing’s popularity after its integration with AI, this is an excellent way to widen your reach even further.

You can also submit news sitemaps to Google News and Google Discover in order to have your site be one of the news pages that appear for mobile and desktop users using those apps. The Google News sitemap would be used as a way to distinguish high-quality content and give page priority to potentially interesting reads for readers.

How to verify that search engines have successfully processed your sitemap?

Upon submitting your site’s sitemap to Google and other search engines, you must verify it is successfully processed. Fortunately, that’s easily done as well.

If you use Google Search Console and already have submitted sitemaps in the Sitemaps report, Google will check it and inform you if it finds any issues. You can then correct them and submit your sitemap again. In some cases, you can also try with different formats. 

Google supports different types of sitemaps. Such include XML, RSS feed, mRSS, Atom 1.0, text, rich media (with video and image files), and news (articles with their title and publication date) sitemaps.

Remember to regularly monitor your sitemap’s status, as that allows you to spot and address potential issues that could impact your site’s visibility in search results. GSC provides data on sitemap errors, so it will point out anything that might require your attention.

Common issues that can prevent the successful submission or processing of your sitemap

While submitting sitemaps is straightforward, some problems might appear regardless of your execution.

They include the following:

• Incorrect sitemap format: XML’s protocol must be followed when you generate an XML sitemap. If you are using a plugin, this should not be a concern, but if you are manually creating such a file or files, you might want to check for any errors in your lines, as otherwise the XML sitemap format could be impacting your performance.

• Sitemap too large: Google has a limit of 50,000 URLs per sitemap and have a file size no larger than 50 MB when uncompressed. If you need a sitemap of smaller size to reduce indexing times even further, you can use methods like gzip compression.

• URLs in the sitemap blocked by the robots.txt file: This webmaster text file instructs web robots how to crawl pages on your website, and if it includes directives blocking search engines from accessing specific pages, that can cause some complications.

• Sitemap contains invalid URLs: The more URLs in your sitemap that lead to valid pages, the more useful information you let search engines find. If only important pages are indexed, this could still be an issue for search engines. Find a way to check for broken or inaccessible URLs, so that crawlers don’t get confused and deem your website as unorganized.

XML sitemaps and SEO performance metrics

One of the ways that XML sitemaps support on-page SEO is by making it easier for search engine bots to find and index your web pages.

Complex websites with many pages and those with dynamic content that is regularly updated pretty much always have at least one XML sitemap or a whole sitemap index file that ensures search engines are informed of all the relevant pages. As a result, that leads to more organic traffic and better overall website visibility in search results.

Additionally, when you combine Google Search Console with other marketing tools like Google Analytics, you can more accurately identify problems that may be preventing your website from performing as well as it could. On the Kenyan market, a single sitemap could take you a long way.

Utilizing XML sitemaps after you know their role and how they work expands your view and puts your hand on the wheel of a proactive approach to managing your SEO efforts that can give you a competitive edge.