In today’s digital world, a well-optimized website is essential for achieving success. By using effective on-page and off-page SEO techniques, businesses can draw in the right audience and turn visitors into customers.

What Is A Sitemap

What Is A Sitemap? The Different Types, Uses & SEO Best-Practice

Maps have been an important tool used by humans for years. They provide us with a sense of direction and help us navigate unfamiliar surroundings. As much as maps are useful in the real world, they are just as essential within the digital landscape. Sitemaps are a website’s blueprint, ensuring that users and search engine crawlers can find their way around.

In this article, we explore what a sitemap is, find out more about the different types of sitemap, and dig deeper into their benefits and importance within the search landscape.Table of Contents

What is a sitemap?

A sitemap is a file that shows the structure of a website, listing out important URLs. The purpose of a sitemap is to help search engines find, crawl and index the content on a website, and some sitemaps help users navigate a website.

There are different types of sitemaps, which are influential for SEO and improving your online visibility.

The different types of sitemaps

Standard XML sitemap: The most common type of sitemap that is often read by search engine crawlers to understand a website.

Image sitemap: A type of XML sitemap that helps search engines find all the images on a website.

Video sitemap: Another type of XML sitemap that helps search engines find all the videos on your website. Video schema has largely replaced the need for a video sitemap.

News sitemap: This helps Google find the content hosted on your website that is suitable for Google News.

HTML sitemap: A sitemap that is a regular page designed to help users navigate a website. This also helps ensure all important website pages are internally linked by at least one other page.

The two most common types of sitemap you will find on a website are the XML and the HTML sitemap.

XML sitemaps

An XML sitemap is a file that lists the important pages of a website to help search engines like Google discover, crawl, and index them more efficiently. XML stands for ‘Extensible Markup Language,’ which is a format designed to store and transport data.


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