Sitemaps - What are they?
There are many Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) techniques and strategies used to make a website rank. One key technique is to have a Sitemap on the website.
So what does a sitemap actually do?
A sitemap is basically a list of all the pages within a website on one web page. This enables a user to view the whole website at the same time; making it easier to find the relevant information they are after. Commonly, when using search engines users know what information they are after; hence why they search for that specific keyword in the first place. Having no sitemap means a user may have to visit all the web pages of a website to find what they are looking for. Using a sitemap gives them the option to use it to find specific information without the chance of them leaving because what they are after isn’t right in front of them.
Types of Sitemap
There are two different types of sitemap: HTML and XMl. HTML sitemaps are used by human users and are generally a list of hyperlinks in a list of all web pages that make up the website. An XML sitemap is used by search engines, the XML sitemap gives the search engines a list of Url’s for it to index. XML sitemaps generally do not have a style, as they are not intended for use by humans.
An example of a HTML sitemap is: http://www.positiongoldltd.com/site-map/
An example of a XML sitemap is: http://www.positiongoldltd.com/sitemap.xml
Summary
Sitemaps are a very useful tool that SEO programmers use. They not only aid human users, but also help search engines identify all Url’s of a website. This helps search engines index the whole of the website much easier, mkaing sure no Url’s are missed.
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