Site map
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A site map (or sitemap) is a list of pages of a web site accessible to crawlers or users. It can be either a document in any form used as a planning tool for web design, or a web page that lists the pages on a web site, typically organized in hierarchical fashion. This helps visitors and search engine bots find pages on the site.
While some developers argue that site index is a more appropriately used term to relay page function, web visitors are used to seeing each term and generally associate both as one and the same. However, a site index is often used to mean an A-Z index that provides access to particular content, while a site map provides a general top-down view of the overall site contents.
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[edit] Benefits of sitemaps
Site maps can improve search engine optimization of a site by making sure that all the pages can be found. This is especially important if a site uses a dynamic access to content such as Adobe Flash or JavaScript menus that do not include HTML links.
They also act as a navigation aid [1] by providing an overview of a site's content at a single glance.
Most search engines will only follow a finite number of links from a page, so if the number of links is very large, the site map may be required so that search engines and visitors can access all content on the site.
[edit] XML sitemaps
Google introduced Google Sitemaps so web developers can publish lists of links from across their sites. The basic premise is that some sites have a large number of dynamic pages that are only available through the use of forms and user entries. The sitemap files can then be used to indicate to a web crawler how such pages can be found. Google, MSN, Yahoo and Ask now jointly support the Sitemaps protocol.
Since MSN, Yahoo, Ask, and Google use the same protocol[2], having a sitemap lets the four biggest search engines have the updated page information. Sitemaps do not guarantee all links will be crawled, and being crawled does not guarantee indexing. However, a sitemap is still the best insurance for getting a search engine to learn about your entire site.[3]
XML sitemaps have replaced the older method of "submitting to search engines" by filling out a form on the search engine's submission page. Now web developers submit a sitemap directly, or wait for search engines to find it.
[edit] See also
- SEO
- XML
- Sitemaps, a standard for URL inclusion
- Biositemap, a protocol for broadcasting and disseminating information about computational biology resources (data, software tools and web-services).
- PowerMapper, a tool for automatically creating site maps with thumbnails for each page
[edit] References
- ^ Site Map Usability Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox, August 12, 2008
- ^ Specification of the common XML format
- ^ Joint announcement from Google, Yahoo, MSN supporting Sitemaps
[edit] External links
- Common Official Website - Jointly maintained website by Google, Yahoo, MSN for an XML sitemap format.
- / Sitemap generators at the Open Directory Project
- Tools and tutorial Helping to build a cross-systems sitemap generator.
- Free Sitemap Generator - Free Linux/Bash Sitemap Generator.
