What Makes a Perfect XML Sitemap?
An XML sitemap is your website's roadmap for search engines. It's a structured file that lists all important pages, helping search crawlers understand your site's architecture and discover content efficiently.
Essential Components of XML Sitemaps
- URL Location (loc): The full URL of each page
- Last Modified (lastmod): When the page was last updated
- Change Frequency (changefreq): How often the page content changes
- Priority: Relative importance of pages (0.0-1.0)
Best Practices for Sitemap Creation
Follow these guidelines to maximize your sitemap's effectiveness:
- Include only canonical URLs to avoid duplicate content issues
- Keep file size under 50MB (uncompressed)
- Limit to 50,000 URLs per sitemap file
- Use UTF-8 encoding for international characters
- Update regularly when content changes