A sitemap is a list of pages that helps search engines such as Google and Bing understand a website.
An important page may have no links pointing to it, either from your own site or from elsewhere. That can make it harder for search engines—and people—to discover. A sitemap gives search engines another route to the page.
Here is how I created one and submitted it when I wrote this article.
How I created a sitemap
I used the website XML-sitemaps to generate an XML sitemap. It crawled my site much like a search engine, so I added any pages without links manually afterward. These were the settings I used:
- Starting URL: the full website address;
- Change frequency: how often the page changes, depending on its type;
- Last modification: use the server’s response;
- Priority: set automatically to reflect the site structure.
After generating the sitemap, I saved the XML file, added any missing URLs, and uploaded it to the website’s main directory with an FTP tool.
Submitting the sitemap
I then told Google and Bing where to find it. These were the steps at the time:
Sign in to your Google account and open Google Webmaster Tools. Add your website and verify that you own it.
At the time, I opened “Site configuration,” then “Sitemaps,” and submitted the sitemap URL. Google could process it immediately or take longer.
Bing
I went to Bing Webmaster Tools to sign in, add my site, and verify ownership. Then I opened “Explore” and “Sitemaps” to submit the same URL.