XML site maps are a simple way of allowing search engine spiders to easily and quickly navigate their way around a website. The site map includes meta tags, such as- how often the web page is updated, when it changes, descriptions of the content and how relative the page is in relation to other URLs. This is all done so the search engines can crawl and index the the web page quicker and more efficiently.

A webmaster can create a Site map, documenting every accessible URL within the website, they can then submit the site map to the search engines. Now that Google, Yahoo! and MSN all use the same protocol, by having a site map it allows the most popular search engines to crawl and index the web pages information. XML site maps work with the robots.txt file, by similarly allowing search engines to crawl certain pages of a website and to view certain URLs.

Within these XML site maps, there are some tags that must be included within the data, these are as following:

• Must start with opening tag <urlset> and end with closing tag </urlset>.
• The name space must be specified within the <urlset> tag.
• You must include the <url> tag for every URL, this is like a parent XML tag.
• For every parent tag, you must include the <loc> child entry.

However, not all tags are compulsory, some other tags are optional. Each search engine has different tolerances and support schemes for the optional tags. The search engines heavily document where their stance is regarding XML site maps and tags.

Although the XML site maps do not guarantee, that your web page will be ranked within the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs), it provides a nudge in the right direction for the search engine spiders to crawl your site more effectively. XML site maps are an important way of helping search engines to quickly and efficiently crawl and index your website.

Related posts:

1. Sitemaps - What are they?
2. META Tags - What are they?
3. Types of Meta tags
4. What are Sitemaps?
5. HTML Site Map