What is Sitemap and how to create

If you are new in this field, you might listen about sitemap. As name suggest it is complete map of site. In other words, sitemap is a list of all the pages that are accessible by search engine crawlers and users. It can be a separate web page that lists all the other pages of the site.  It could be of two types, one is HTML sitemap while the other is XML sitemap. An HTML sitemap is usually a simple HTML page on a website that could be easily understood by the users. It is not necessary to include each sub page in HTML sitemap. It could have main pages so that a user can access different content on the website.


Other type of sitemap is XML sitemap. This is a structured document that follow a specific pattern and user don't need to see this, as this is not understandable by users. By looking at XML sitemap, user can't get an idea about the pages. It is good to include all the main pages and sub pages in this file as this is useful for search engine crawlers and bots. Sitemap helps a lot in indexing the pages in search engines.

How to create a HTML Sitemap:

It is not difficult to create a HTML sitemap, it is just simple html language. Just create a simple static page on your website and mention most important pages of your site in which user may be interested. You have to make the hyper links using proper anchors for each page. Anchor must be meaningful so that user can understand what type of content that page may have.

How to create a XML Sitemap:

If you are a programmer and know simple programming, you can create xml sitemap easily. But if you don't have enough knowledge of programming, than no need to worry. There are various tools available online to make your sitemap.

Ideally a sitemap should be as soon as a new page is created on your website, whether the site is static or dynamic. Because xml sitemap is the best document from which search engine can find all your pages easily.

If you want to create a static sitemap, than here is a famous online tool to create your sitemap: http://www.xml-sitemaps.com/ this is free online tool to create your xml sitemap. But there is a restriction, if your site have many pages than it will not be useful for you. As you can create sitemap of only 500 pages. It will not create more than 500 pages in the sitemap. Second restriction is that, it don't update automatically. You have to create a new sitemap every time you add a new page in your website. So it is very difficult to keep it upto date.

If your website using a CMS, than you can find various plugins/extensions to create a dynamic sitemap. These plugins offer to create free sitemaps of unlimited pages and could be updated automatically. Here I will mention only one, rest you can find from Google search. 

If you are using WordPress, than you can find "Google XML Sitemaps" plugin. Install it through wp-admin or upload its file on your FTP. You have to create the sitemap only once after installation of this plugin. Once you have created the sitemap successfully, this plugin will keep your sitemap up to date each time you add a new page on your site. So this plugin can be used to create your dynamic xml sitemap. Its free and can be downloaded easily. Google and other search engines can read this xml sitemap easily so this is the best way to create your sitemap for dynamic site.