What is a sitemap and what is it used for on the website?
Google is the world's largest search engine and one of the largest companies on the planet.
Despite its impressive ability to find answers to all our questions, when we ask Google to explain how its search engine works, the answers it gives us are not always satisfactory. Engines like Google.com read this file to crawl your site much more efficiently.
Many of you have certainly understood what this means and need no further explanation, but this blog is for anyone who wants to learn more about digital marketing. Let's put things in context to fully understand what a sitemap is.
How useful are sitemaps for Google?
When you search on Google, the results you get are usually much closer to what you're looking for than any other search engine.
How does Google give us a relevant answer to almost any question we can ask in less than a second?
Google knows the content of billions of sites because it constantly crawls sites around the world with "Googlebot". These robots analyze a site and catalog its content, so when you ask a Google question, you know which site to recommend.
Knowing that Google has billions of fast Googlebots crawling and constantly cataloging every website in the world, you might be wondering why your small business website doesn't show up on Google when you enter its URL .
If you don't see your site in results when you enter the URL in Google, crawlers may not be able to find or access your information. In other words, I can't index your page.
Googlebots, for example, find it difficult to crawl sites that have an unusual structure or almost no traffic. Sending a sitemap to Google is a great way to make sure Google bots know about your site and what pages they crawl so they can show it in Google results.
Do you have more questions about the site map?
What is the role of the sitemap in indexing a website?
Many pages will appear in Google results without the site owner having to submit a sitemap, but that doesn't mean every page on the site will be indexed. Submitting a sitemap is essential to ensure that search engines correctly index every page on your site. If your site does not appear in Google results when you enter the URL, you should review your sitemaps as as soon as possible.
Do I need a free sitemap?
There is no rule that a site must have a sitemap, and Google can find all the information on every page of a site without having one, but submitting a sitemap to Google is a great option. the content of your site is accessible.
Which sites absolutely need a sitemap?
Sitemaps Hands have a positive effect on SEO. They are essential for some types of sites:
sites with a lot of content, pages and subpages, such as online stores or databases;
Sites whose individual pages are not very well linked or have a less conventional structure;
New websites that are launched without ads and therefore receive little traffic. Google Bots track links and visitors to find and index new sites. If a site is new and unknown, sending a sitemap is a way to let Google know it exists.
I don't know if my site is visible enough, do I need to create a sitemap?
If you're not 100% sure you don't need a sitemap, take the time to create one and submit it to Google.
XML sitemap or HTML sitemap?
There are two types of sitemaps that are important in digital marketing. One is for site visitors and the other is for search engines. To make it easier for Google to find and index your site, you need to create an XML sitemap. An XML sitemap provides an overview of the structure of your site in the Google XML crawler language.
HTML sitemaps are created for your visitors and displayed on your website. It is actually a page on your site that lists all the pages on your site with hyperlinks to each to make it easier for users to navigate your site and find the pages they need. It is important to make sure that the sitemap is displayed on smartphones and computers.
How do I create a sitemap for my site?
There are many ways to create a sitemap. Keep in mind that many CMS give you the tools you need to create a sitemap. If you do not have a CMS, you can use a sitemap generator. You will then need to upload the file to the root of your server with an FTP program and upload it to Google.
How do I submit my site map to Google and other search engines?
In order for all search engines to know that your sitemap exists, you need to indicate where it is in the robots.txt file. You also have the option to submit your sitemap directly to Google from the Google Search Console (formerly called "Google Webmaster Tools").
Are there other types of site maps?
Yes, a site map can also be used to help the user find certain types of content. There are, for example:
- Sitemap for images
- Sitemap for video -
-News
-Sitemap for videos, images and mobile devices
Why create a sitemap for videos?
In recent years, video content has become the favorite weapon to attract the attention of visitors and create attractive web pages. Instead of embedding videos posted on Youtube on their site, some choose to host their videos on their own server. Maybe it's because these videos are an integral part of their website design, or because they want to make sure that everyone who watches the videos isn't distracted by other videos on other channels. Creating a sitemap for your videos is a great way to make sure Google finds them.
Does my site need a video sitemap?
You should seriously consider submitting a sitemap for your videos if you:
1) host videos on your site that you want search engines like Google to find, because those videos have a high chance of attracting people to your site. your. A good example is product description videos, which often include keyword-rich descriptions. However, this type of site map is, for example, irrelevant to a website that only hosts short decorative videos or an animated logo.
2) Your site has recent video content that needs to appear in search engine results as soon as possible to remain relevant. These are, for example, thematic news sites and blogs. Regularly updating your video sitemap and sending it to Google ensures that the search engine finds all the short-term videos of interest as quickly as possible. This is important because Google crawls some sites less often than others. A video site map is one of the many signals that news sites can send to Google to draw attention to their video content and encourage frequent crawling of the search engine. This is increasingly important in a world where 24-hour information cycles are changing rapidly.
How to format videos correctly?
If you plan to submit a video sitemap, make sure that the format of the videos hosted on your site matches the file formats that Google can crawl and index. Here they are:
.3g2, .3gp2, .3gp, .3gpp, .asf, .avi, .divx, .f4v, .flv, .m2v ,, .m3u8, .m4v, .mkv, .mov, .mp4, . mpe, .mpeg, .mpg, .ogv, .qvt, .ram, .rm, .vob, .webm, .wmv, .xap
* Please note that in 2020 Flash is no longer supported by many browsers, and by therefore, it should no longer be used.
These formatting recommendations are taken from Google's best video practices. If your videos aren't in one of these formats, consider converting them before continuing.
Do I need a sitemap for embedded Youtube videos?
Google Best Practices encourages users to create a sitemap for YouTube videos embedded in their sites:
“YouTube videos can be crawled. However, it is useful to provide a structured video or data sitemap to help Google identify the YouTube video embedded in your page. Please note that sitemaps and structured data also allow you to provide additional information about video clip. ”
In short, the answer is yes, it costs nothing; however, the value of a video sitemap is not as high in this case as it is for hosted video videos, and there may be more important things to do with your time. A video sitemap can give Google more information about a website's video. but Youtube is owned by Google. In some searches, it's best to make sure that each video is loaded with an effective meta title and description, as YouTube videos will have no problem being indexed by Google. Also, clicking on Youtube is the easiest way. A user may find your video and site.
How to create and submit a video sitemap?
If you want to submit a video sitemap to Google, you have two options: add your sitemap to your existing xml sitemap. Or submit a separate sitemap. In this case, make sure that your robots.txt file doesn't block Google robots.
Why create a sitemap with images?
The easy-to-use CMS and high-speed internet connections have made images an essential part of the site's content. An online store can contain hundreds or even thousands of images. Many of these images can appear in Google Images search results and attract visitors to your site. Images can also improve a website's SEO, thanks to keywords embedded in image tags. Sending an image sitemap increases the chances of those images being found.
Does my site need an image map?
You should definitely consider submitting an image sitemap if your site has hundreds or thousands of images that can be added with keyword-rich descriptions, such as product photos and usage charts.
Image sitemaps are also recommended for websites that display unorthodoxly encoded images, such as Java, or that display images with embedded descriptions. They should also be considered for any images whose presentation violates Google's best practices for publishing images. However, we don't recommend going against Google's rules if you want your images to appear in search results.
How do I create and submit a mobile sitemap?
If you want to submit a sitemap with images, you have several options. You can add image information to your existing XML site map, or send a separate sitemap to Google. To give Google more information about your images, you can also consider using Google image extensions for sitemaps. For more information about submitting an image sitemap, see this Google Search Console Image Support article.
Why create a mobile sitemap?
Mobile sitemaps are a relic of the first smartphones to connect to the Internet via the WAP protocol, which requires a simplified version of websites. Modern smartphones access the main version of your website, so the mobile site map is the same as the main site map.
Does my site need a mobile sitemap?
Forget about mobile sitemaps, you don't need them, and focus on image sitemaps, video sitemaps, and meta descriptions.
