View source for Site map

{{Short description|List of pages of a web site}}
{{pp-semi-indef|small=yes}}
A '''sitemap''' is a list of [[web page|pages]] of a [[web site]] within a [[Domain name|domain]].

There are three primary kinds of sitemap:
* Sitemaps used during the planning of a website by its [[web design|designers]]
* Human-visible listings, typically hierarchical, of the pages on a site
* Structured listings intended for [[web crawler]]s such as [[web search engine|search engines]]

== Types of sitemaps ==
[[File:Main Page Usability.png|thumb|right|500px|A sitemap of what links from the [[English Wikipedia]]'s Main Page]]
[[File:sitemap google.jpg|400px|thumb|Sitemap of Google in 2006]]

Sitemaps may be addressed to users or to software.

Many sites have user-visible sitemaps which present a systematic view, typically hierarchical, of the site. These are intended to help visitors find specific pages, and can also be used by crawlers. They also act as a navigation aid<ref>[http://www.nngroup.com/articles/site-map-usability/ Sitemap Usability] Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox, August 12, 2008</ref> by providing an overview of a site's content at a single glance.
Alphabetically organized sitemaps, sometimes called site indexes, are a different approach.

For use by search engines and other crawlers, there is a structured format, the [[XML]] Sitemap, which lists the pages in a site, their relative importance, and how often they are updated.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Nadik |first=Tessa |date=2023-02-09 |title=What Is A Sitemap? Do I Need One? |url=https://www.searchenginejournal.com/what-is-a-sitemap/478071/ |access-date=2023-09-16 |website=Search Engine Journal |language=en}}</ref> This is pointed to from the [[Robots exclusion standard|robots.txt file]] and is typically called '''sitemap.xml'''. The structured format is particularly important for websites which include pages that are not accessible through [[hyperlink|links]] from other pages, but only through the site's search tools or by dynamic construction of [[URL]]s in [[JavaScript]].

== XML sitemaps ==
{{Main article|Sitemaps}}
[[Google]] introduced the [[Sitemaps|Sitemap protocol]], 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 contain URLs to these pages so that [[web crawlers]] can find them. [[Bing.com|Bing]], Google, [[Yahoo]] and [[Ask.com|Ask]] now jointly support the Sitemaps protocol.

Since the major [[search engine]]s use the same protocol,<ref name="Oreilly">{{cite web|publisher=[[Oreilly]]|url=http://www.oreillynet.com/xml/blog/2006/11/google_yahoo_microsoft_standar.html|title=Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft Standardize Against Google Sitemap Protocol|access-date=2012-07-24}}</ref> having a Sitemap lets them have the updated page information. Sitemaps do not guarantee all links will be crawled, and being crawled does not guarantee indexing.<ref>[http://www.google.com/press/pressrel/sitemapsorg.html Joint announcement] from Google, Yahoo, and Bing supporting Sitemaps</ref> Google Webmaster Tools allow a website owner to upload a sitemap that Google will crawl, or they can accomplish the same thing with the robots.txt file.<ref name="Google">{{cite web|publisher=Google Inc.|url=https://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=183669&topic=8476&ctx=topic|title=Submitting Sitemaps|access-date=2012-07-06}}</ref>

=== Sample ===
Below is an example of a validated XML sitemap for a simple three-page website. Sitemaps are a useful tool for making sites searchable, particularly those written in non-HTML languages.

<syntaxhighlight lang="xml">
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9">
  <url>
    <loc>http://www.example.net/?id=who</loc>
    <lastmod>2009-09-22</lastmod>
    <changefreq>monthly</changefreq>
    <priority>0.8</priority>
  </url>
  <url>
    <loc>http://www.example.net/?id=what</loc>
    <lastmod>2009-09-22</lastmod>
    <changefreq>monthly</changefreq>
    <priority>0.5</priority>
  </url>
  <url>
    <loc>http://www.example.net/?id=how</loc>
    <lastmod>2009-09-22</lastmod>
    <changefreq>monthly</changefreq>
    <priority>0.5</priority>
  </url>
</urlset>
</syntaxhighlight>

== See also ==
{{div col}}
* [[Biositemap]], a protocol for broadcasting and disseminating information about [[computational biology]] resources (data, software tools and web-services)
* [[Contact page]]
* [[Home page]]
* [[Search engine indexing]]
* [[Link page]]
* [[Search engine optimization]]
* [[Web indexing]]
{{div col end}}

== References ==
{{Reflist}}

== External links ==
* [http://www.sitemaps.org/ Common Official Website] - Jointly maintained website by Google, Yahoo, MSN for an XML sitemap format.

{{Subject bar |portal1= Internet }}
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[[Category:Search engine optimization]]
[[Category:Information architecture]]
[[Category:Web navigation]]