Creating a sitemap

[Shahid Awan]

I wanted to know about creating sitemap for example if we have a website with hundreds of pages in it and thousands of images in it , so do we have to put all of the URLs in the sitemap or the main URLs only? and do we need to create a separate sitemap for images ? Kindly give some suggestions ..

 

[MaureenP]

There are different types of sitemap but main are two. HTML sitemap and XML sitemap. HTML sitemap is created for user experience and XML sitemap is created for search engine crawler which you can be generated automatically by https://www.xml-sitemaps.com/. You can manually set the priority of URLs after generating sitemap and download it. After that, you just need to submit sitemap through Google webmaster tool. No need to generate a seprate sitemap for images.

 

[WoottonSEO]

Depends on the platform you're using on how you go about generating them. I recommend having both a HTML and XML sitemap.

An XML sitemap can be submitted to Google Search Console directly - so they are aware of all the URLs to crawl. However a HTML sitemap is good for usability for end users as well as enhancing the internal link structure of the site.

A HTML Sitemap can help ensure that authority flows optimally throughout your site and to help ensure that no pages are considered dead ends.

If the images are unique it would be worthwhile to have an image sitemap; however most images on websites aren't unique so you're probably not going to rank for them if that's the case.

 

[Alan]

What continue to amaze me is a question like this comes from a company that puts itself out as providing seo services.

Even worse, their main site is WordPress with an existing sitemap.xml

Get a grip

 

[Xtm_Mike]

What continue to amaze me is a question like this comes from a company that puts itself out as providing seo services.

Even worse, their main site is WordPress with an existing sitemap.xml

Get a grip

lol

 

[Shahid Awan]

There are different types of sitemap but main are two. HTML sitemap and XML sitemap. HTML sitemap is created for user experience and XML sitemap is created for search engine crawler which you can be generated automatically by https://www.xml-sitemaps.com/. You can manually set the priority of URLs after generating sitemap and download it. After that, you just need to submit sitemap through Google webmaster tool. No need to generate a seprate sitemap for images.

Thanks for your suggestions !

 

[Shahid Awan]

Depends on the platform you're using on how you go about generating them. I recommend having both a HTML and XML sitemap.

An XML sitemap can be submitted to Google Search Console directly - so they are aware of all the URLs to crawl. However a HTML sitemap is good for usability for end users as well as enhancing the internal link structure of the site.

A HTML Sitemap can help ensure that authority flows optimally throughout your site and to help ensure that no pages are considered dead ends.

If the images are unique it would be worthwhile to have an image sitemap; however most images on websites aren't unique so you're probably not going to rank for them if that's the case.

Thanks a lot for detailed guidance on creating a sitemap !!

 

[Shahid Awan]

What continue to amaze me is a question like this comes from a company that puts itself out as providing seo services.

Even worse, their main site is WordPress with an existing sitemap.xml

Get a grip

I asked this question not for the seo of small corporate sites but for the biggest portals, for those keywords which has thousands of searches , If I am going to start a website of wallpapers , and the keyword is download wallpapers which is being searched all over the world then what kind of sitemap do we need for such websites , got it !!

 

[fisicx]

The sitemap will make very little difference to a site like this unless it is properly formatted. do not use any cheap/free sitemap builders.

One of the keys elements of the sitemap is the priority. Get this wrong and your ranking will be affected. Consider also that the sitemap is pointless with out a properly structured site. google will use the sitemap to identify new and amended pages but will then look at the site to see how these pages fit into the internal navigation system. It has nothing at all to do with the number of searches.

So a really well built site no matter how many pages there are may not need a sitemap at all.

 

[fisicx]

To add a sitemap to your WordPress site, you first need to install and activate WordPress SEO by Yoast plugin.

No you don't. This is bad advice. The site of the OP's site means adding yoast will compromise server performance - if of course they are even using wordpress.

 

[Xtm_Mike]

No you don't. This is bad advice. The site of the OP's site means adding yoast will compromise server performance - if of course they are even using wordpress.

Again with the Yoast performance. I'd really like some evidence of these claims. We use Yoast on almost all WP sites, some really big sites, so I can't take these claims lightly... I'm not trying to catch you out, just really interested to know as I have looked into it and can't find anything that would lead you to make these claims about Yoast.

Yoast is open source, please show us the code that will compromise server performance: https://github.com/Yoast/wordpress-seo - it would be good for you to point out the code that loads each page twice (or mirrors a page - as you suggested in an earlier thread).

From what I can see, most Yoast code runs in the admin area, so wouldn't impact much at all on the front end.

 

[fisicx]

I've never looked into the actual code. I only discovered the mirroring when I had a compatibility issue with one of my plugins. The Yoast developer said the problem was because after the page has loaded on your site Yoast then loads the page again internally to do its analysis. There have been a number of support threads on Wordpress.org discussing this issue.

All in one SEO doesn't have this problem. And Yoast is the slowest loading of all the SEO plugins.

I doubt most people will ever notice the performance issue but if you are looking for millisecond savings (and many big sites are) Yoast is one of the blockages.

 

[Xtm_Mike]

I'd be more inclined to look at the server configuration if I was worried about the performance of Yoast.

I've looked into the code and reached out to their developers for clarification... there is no mirroring going on and there is no real performance impact. Most of the heavy parts of Yoast is admin related.

 

[UKSBD]

If you have 500,000 URL's you can create 10 plain text files each just listing 50,000 URL's
(1 per line)

Then either submit the 10 plain text sitemaps, create a sitemapindex xml file that lists your 10 txt files and submit that or do both.

 

[Shahid Awan]

I also use SEO by Yoast Plugin , it is working really well and gives me best results but I use Yoast for the SEO of co-operation websites and I think if I will start a wallpaper website and using WordPress Paid theme and using a free plugin of SEO by Yoast then it will be difficult to rank, I should create my own WordPress theme and Dynamic sitemaps. Anyway , so many things got cleared here by this discussion , I will appreciate if more people share their thoughts on this discussion !!

 

[WoottonSEO]

To add a sitemap to your WordPress site, you first need to install and activate WordPress SEO by Yoast plugin. By default, the WordPress SEO XML Sitemap does not enable functionality, so you have to turn it on. To do this, go to the SEO »XML Sitemap and check the box to enable XML Sitemap functionality.

Good choice of SEO Plugins - It's my SEO Plugin of choice for WordPress sites.

Yoast is particularly useful in that it breaks down Sitemaps into a number of different sub sitemaps; for posts, pages, custom post types etc.

So there is a primary sitemap "sitemap_index.xml" (off the top of my head) which lists sub sitemaps internally within it: post-sitemap.xml page-sitemap.xml etc.

Quick pointer - you need to have "advanced features" enabled in Yoast; else the XML Sitemap section will not show. Hope this helps

 

[Shahid Awan]

I've read the comments of everyone and everyone has given so many useful tips which helped me a lot in creating sitemaps, thanks a lot everyone for your contributions on this post !!

 

[visuallyconnected]

There are plenty of free tools to create sitemaps, if your site is wordpress based then you can use something like Yoast SEO which includes a sitemap generator. There are other tools that can be used also

 

[fisicx]

There are plenty of free tools to create sitemaps, if your site is wordpress based then you can use something like Yoast SEO which includes a sitemap generator. There are other tools that can be used also

No don't do this. The sitemap Yoast and other free tools create can hurt your ranking.

If a page is already indexed then a sitemap won't make any difference at all. And if a page is hard to find on your site then a sitemap will alert Google to its existence but nothing more.

You are far better off building a really great internal navigation than you are submitting a sitemap.

 

[Xtm_Mike]

The sitemap Yoast and other free tools create can hurt your ranking.

Can you back up this claim? Don't know what you have against Yoast.

I'm against over usage of WP plugins and WP in general, I hate it, but most of your claims are baseless.

 

[fisicx]

In this case it's not Yoast itself it's the sitemap it any other tools create. The most important part of a sitemap is the priority. Get this wrong and your ranking can tank. Which is why in many cases it's better not to even have a sitemap. For those occasions where it is needed you are better off checking the priorities of each page/post/product.