SITEMAP AND HOW TO GENERATE IT FOR TECHNICAL SEO!

Search engines are a complicated subject.  The web is full of massive complexities.  And searching, filtering, clicking and converting are the most difficult and complicated tasks by humans.  But in spite of all these things, we should not build any impenetrable wall.  We can face these complexities through SEO. So in this article we will consider the topic of SEO which helps the search engines to find our website and its pages.  Which we know as SITEMAP

# What is Sitemap :-

 A sitemap is a map that defines the structure of your website, which together represents a list of all the files available on your website and its main purpose is to keep search spiders aware of every page of your page.  

Because websites can become very complex due to the many pages involved, it becomes imperative to design a website's page structure.  

Which we submit to Google so that its spiders are well aware of every page of your website.

When did Sitemaps start?

It was first introduced by Google in 2005, then in 2006 Yahoo and MSN Search agreed to use it.  Today all search engines such as Google, Yahoo!, and Bing support the XML sitemap protocol.

Type of sitemap:-

 There are mainly two types of sitemaps

•  XML SITEMAP 
• HTML SITEMAP 

1.XML SITEMAP :-  

XML sitemaps are designed purely for search engine use.  It tells Google how many times it should re-crawl the page, and the relative importance of each page.

 Because XML sitemap is generated through            coads it does not look beautiful nor is it 'human      friendly'. It is created only and only for Google.        But submitting a sitemap to Google should not      imply that the page you add will be indexed by        Google.  

Google always works according to its guideline     so sitemap is only a guide that works to help           Google understand the website and find any   pages that might have been missed through crawling.

 XML sitemaps are divided into the following types :- 

• Image Sitemap:-

You'll increase the visibility of your images by listing them in your sitemap file.You'll also list the pictures you see on those pages for every URL you list during a sitemap file. you'll list up to 1000 images on a page. Specific image tags are related to URLs. Listing images during a sitemap increases the probabilities of these images being indexed.

• Video Sitemaps:-  

Once you include your video's information during a video sitemap file, the probabilities of search engines finding the video are greatly increased. Google supports the subsequent video formats: .mpg, .mpeg, .mp4, .m4v, .mov, .wmv, .asf, .avi, .ra, .ram, .rm, .flv, .swf.

• Mobile Sitemaps:-

  Mobile sitemaps are created for targeted content from mobile devices. Mobile information is kept during a separate Sitemap file that ought to not contain any information on non-mobile URLs.

• News Sitemaps:-

 News Sitemaps are created for the news content available on the website. By which the search engine can provide the meta data of those news to Google.  And this sitemap empowers the site owner to control what content should and should not be submitted to Google News.

2. HTML Sitemaps :- 

 HTML sitemaps use a clear layout indicating the hierarchy of the page.HTML sitemap is constructed by html coad style which is used for website and page creation. Therefore it is also 'human friendly'. Usually, an HTML sitemap makes no sense unless the navigation of the web site is so poor that visitors need to resort to scanningthrough an inventory of the site's pages to seek out the knowledge the need.  If you've got an HTML sitemap on your website and you notice from your Google Analytics data that it's getting used with any significant frequency.

# Benefits of sitemaps include the following:

• For pages that search engines already know through their regular spidering, they use Metadata you supply, like the top date and frequency of modifying the content the speed at which the page is modified (changefreq), in order that they will improve the way your site is crawled.
•  Pages they do not know use additional URLs you provide to extend their crawl coverage.
• To assist the engine use XML sitemap data for URLs which will contain duplicates, a . can choose canonical version.
• Validation/registration of XML sitemap may indicate positive trust/authority signals.
• The crawling/inclusion benefits of sitemaps can have second-order positive effects, like improvedRanking or higher internal link popularity.
• Having a site map registered with Google Webmaster Tools can offer you additional analytical information. Whether your site is affected by indexation, crawling or duplicate content issues.

#Generate XML Sitemaps for Blogger:-

Open the .xml sitemap Generator and Paste the full URL of your website in box and click "Generate Sitemap".

And that's all . Second page open and your sitemap is come for you. 

And ready for submit to Google and Bing.

#Generate XML Sitemaps for Wordpress :- 

Open wordpress website and Click on the Yoast Plugin

Click the “Dashboard” option.

From the Dashboard, click “Features.”

From the Features tab, search for “XML sitemaps” and confirm it's toggled to “On.”

Now, scroll to rock bottom and click on “Save Changes.”

If you would like to customize your sitemap, find out how here. for instance , you would possibly want to exclude pages that aren’t public.

# Where to upload your sitemap file:-

When you have finished creating the sitemap file. Upload the file to the highest-level directory you want on your site. Search engines use the root directory, such as www.yoursite.com/sitemap.xml, to crawl the website  .  You can include more than one subdomain in a sitemap, but you must verify a separate sitemap for each

 And go to all Webmaster tools like (Google,Yahoo,Bing etc.) 

And tell Search Engine the location of your XML sitemap.  You'll need to repeat this process when you do major updates to your site.  and use robots.txt to reference

# Managing and Updating XML Sitemaps:-

 When your XML sitemap is accepted by search engines and crawled by crawlers, monitor the results and update the sitemap if there are any problems.  View statistics and diagnostics related to your XML sitemap using a Google Webmaster Tools account.  Simply click on the site you want to monitor.  Common issues such as slow crawling and low indexation you receive from Google are also addressed in a timely manner. Update your XML sitemap with Google and Bing as you add or remove URLs from your site.

# Conclusion:-

From this article you can understand that sitemaps are a way to feed website URLs that you want to crawl on your site in order to make Google more complete.Crawling and indexation, resulting in improved long-tail searchability.build and update it.Now you are ready to generate a sitemap of your site and submit the sitemap to Google and other search engines, you are able to give a new direction to your SEO.  If you liked this article, then do tell by commenting.

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