An XML Sitemap is considered as a map of the website, which is a link on your site that has an .xml extension. When the user clicks on this link, they will see all the pages accessible on your site.
For example, this is a sitemap of ForumWeb blog: https://forumweb.hosting/blog/sitemap_index.xml
What is the format of a sitemap?
The file format of a “Sitemap” consists of XML tags. UTF-8 should also be used as a file encryption. Due to the URL structure in the Sitemap, you only need to use this encryption as plain text.
What elements should be considered in a sitemap?
1. When specifying the URL structure, https:// , which is one of the web protocols, should definitely be used.
2. A sitemap file should contain no more than 50,000 URLs , and should not exceed 10MB file size.
3. The Sitemap file should be in your main directory. If it is not in your main line, it will not make any contribution to your site.
4. Sitemap only has to have the URL structure that belongs to your site. If you use a different site URL structure, your site will be taken to blacklist by search engines. In such a case; all your link structures are removed by search engines.
Benefits of sitemap
With Sitemap, you can attract all search engines, especially Google. With the Sitemap, you can ensure that Google is aware of these URLs by communicating the content of news, media, and visual content on your site to Google.
Does sitemap help your web pages index faster in search engines?
The sitemap has an important influence on the indexing of your site in search engines. Bots who visit your site, this file is about updating the pages. For example, the date of the last update and the interval at which it was updated. Also, categorize the content on your site so that the pages appear on the search engine.
How to submit your site to Google
1. You need to log in to Google webmaster tool https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/
2. Select Crawl tab – Sitemaps
Click Add/test sitemap button to add your sitemap. After you submitted your sitemap, you can access to this URL https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/sitemap-list?hl=en&siteUrl=https://forumweb.hosting/ and see how many URLs are Submitted and indexed
