Tuesday, July 12, 2011

How To Create XML Sitemap - XML Sitemap Doctype

How to Create an XML Site Map

Many people ask about the differences in an HTML and an XML sitemap. A simple explanation is that an HTML sitemap (or PHP, etc.) lists links to pages for site visitors to use much like a book's table of contents. A XML sitemap helps search engines to locate and better index pages on a website. Below is a generic example of how to create an XML sitemap.

The lastmod refers to the last date that the particular page was modified/updated. The priority tells search engines the relative importance of the content on the specified page relative to other pages. An About Us page typically would have a lower priority than a page concerning more specific information on products or services. You should not list on your site map any utility pages such as Site Map, Contact, Privacy Policy, etc. The XML sitemap should be placed on the same directory level as your site's pages. Do not link to the XML sitemap from your website pages. Ideally you should submit your XML sitemap to Google and other search engines, although search engines will find it when crawling your website's hosting service.

The use of a well constructed XML sitemap is a highly recommended, and takes only minutes to create. If you remain uncertain how to do this, contact us and we can create a XML sitemap for your business website.

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