What is the use of sitemap in SEO?

Sitemaps are an important way of communication with search engines. The purpose of a site map is to spell out your Web site’s central content themes and to show both search engine spiders and your visitors where to find information on your site.
 
A Sitemap is an XML file that lists the URLs for a site. It allows webmasters to include additional information about each URL: when it was last updated, how often it changes, and how important it is in relation to other URLs in the site. This allows search engines to crawl the site more intelligently.
 
Usually Sitemaps are created as an xml file. It should be placed at the root of the site. There are tools to generate sitemap. Search engines can find out easily the pages catched. It helps spiders to crawl to the pages.
 
Sitemaps are not a novelty. They have always been part of best Web design practices but with the adoption of sitemaps by search engines, now they become even more important. However, it is necessary to make a clarification that if you are interested in sitemaps mainly from a SEO point of view, you can't go on with the conventional sitemap only (though currently Yahoo! and MSN still keep to the standard html format). For instance, Google Sitemaps uses a special (XML) format that is different from the ordinary html sitemap for human visitors.
 
XML Sitemaps are important for SEO because they make it easier for Google to find your site's pages-this is important because Google ranks web pages not just websites. Sitemaps makes navigation your site easier and having an updated sitemap on your site is good both for users and for search engines. Sitemaps are an important way of communication with search engines.
 
Back
Top