SEO Checklist - Part 6 - On Page Optimization - Sitemap

A sitemap is a file where you provide information about the pages, videos, and other files on your site, and the relationships between them. Search engines like Google read this file to more intelligently crawl your site. - Google
Google relies heavily on sitemaps for indexing and discoverability, so it's important to have your sitemaps in tip-top condition.  
A sitemap can improve the crawling of larger or more complex sites or more specialized files. Whether you need a sitemap or not depends on the structure and types and volume of contents your website has.

Sitemap Formats:-
Source:- Google

XML Sitemap:-
An XML sitemap allows a bot to easily navigate a website. It is not meant for visitors to understand.

An .xml sitemap is usually created using an XML sitemap generator. Here is a very basic XML sitemap that includes the location of a single URL:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9">

   <url>

      <loc>http://www.example.com/</loc>
      <lastmod>2005-01-01</lastmod>
      <changefreq>monthly</changefreq>
      <priority>0.8</priority>

   </url>

</urlset> 

To locate the sitemap of your website type the domain name and then /sitemap.xml. Example: https://www.domainname.com/sitemap.xml

HTML Sitemap:-

An HTML sitemap allows site visitors to easily navigate a website. It is a bulleted outline text version of the site navigation. The anchor text displayed in the outline is linked to the page it references. Site visitors can go to the Sitemap to locate a topic they are unable to find by searching the site or navigating through the site menus. A .html sitemap is usually created using an HTML sitemap generator or can be created manually. 

Here is a very basic XML sitemap that includes the location of a single URL:

Source

To locate the sitemap of your website type the domain name and then /sitemap.html. Example: https://www.domainname.com/sitemap.html

Things we are looking for and want to diagnose in the sitemap are:
  1. nonessential pages high up in the hierarchy
  2. 404s in the sitemap
  3. redirected pages in the sitemap
  4. non-seсure pages
  5. incorrect sitemap formatting
  6. making sure all URLs are canonical
  7. checking that it's referenced in your robots.txt file
The robots.txt file should look like

Sitemap: http://www.example.com/sitemap.xml
User-agent: *
Disallow:
 

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