Importance of XML Sitemap

Looking towards the importance of search engine optimization it is necessary to make the site search engine friendly as well as easy to navigate for the users. The sitemap in any website fulfills both the purposes. There are two types of sitemap: HTML and XML sitemap. HTML sitemap help the users to navigate easily and XML sitemap is essential for the visibility of a site by search engine crawler. Both are equally important and essential for a site. There are some advantages of XML sitemap and additional features too which HTML sitemap doesn't have:

• To crawl all the web pages of a site frequently.
• Can set the priority for each page to crawl.
• To make the site crawl for all the search engines.
• Can allow the spider to track all the pages of the site.
• It helps the spider in fast indexing.
• The crawler tracks the updates or changes made in the site immediately.
• It allows search engine to rank accurately.

The XML sitemap is uploaded as a file on the server. It can be created manually or can be downloaded from the sites which allow automatic generation of these kinds of sitemaps. The best way to optimize the site with the sitemap is to submit XML sitemap in Google Webmaster tool. The only thing to remember is there should not be any broken links and it should be well organized too. The common Syntax of XML sitemap is:

www.yoursite.com
This is for the location/URL of the webpage. It should be accurate and complete.

0.00
It can be from 0.1 to 1.0. The priority shows how much the web page should be important for the crawler. For SEO purpose always keep 1.00 priorities for the home and product page.

date time
It shows the last date & time of the page modified.

daily/weekly/monthly
It shows the frequency of changes done for the webpage. It depends on the purpose of the site page too.

XML sitemap saves the time of search engine spider to track all the pages of a site. It does not affect the site ranking but it allows crawler to track all the pages frequently which is helpful to rank well. Previously, XML sitemap was important for Google only but now Yahoo! and MSN are also giving importance to it.