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If you want to make sure that search engines find all of the content on your website, implement an XML (Extensible Markup Language) sitemap. To create an XML sitemap, open a new document in a word processing program or HTML authoring program of your choice (i.e. Notepad, Word, Dreamweaver). Save the document with a .xml file extension (i.e. sitemap.xml). The .xml file extension will let search engines know that the sitemap is an XML file.

What does an XML Sitemap Look Like?

In order for search engines to properly read your XML sitemap, it needs to follow proper formatting.

Beginning of XML Sitemap

The first 2 lines of an XML sitemap should consist of the following:


    <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
    <urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9">

Identify Each Page of Website in XML Sitemap

The URL address for each page should be surrounded by <url><loc></loc></url> tags

     <url>
          <loc>www.yoursite.com</loc>
     </url>

End of XML Sitemap

     </urlset>

Example of A Basic XML Sitemap

    <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
    <urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9">
<url>
<loc>www.mywebsiteaboutanimals.com</loc>
</url>
<url>
<loc>www.
mywebsiteaboutanimals.com/birds.html</loc>
</url>
<url>
<loc>www.mywebsiteaboutanimals.com/cats.html</loc>

</url>
<url>
<loc>www.mywebsiteaboutanimals.com/dogs.html</loc>
</url>
</urlset>

Additional Parameters for XML Sitemaps

You can provide additional information for search engines to consider about your webpages. However, there is no guarantee that they will be used by search engines for indexing your webpages. These parameters are optional, so you don't have to include them:

<lastmod></lastmod>

The date of the last time the page was modified (use one of the following formats)


<changefreq></changefreq>

The frequency of updates to the page (use any of the following values)

<priority></priority>

The priority of the page relative to other pages on the site (use one of the following values)

Example of XML Sitemap with Optional Parameters

    <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
    <urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9">
<url>
<loc>www.mywebsiteaboutanimals.com</loc>
<lastmod>2013-01-15</lastmod>
<changefreq>daily</changefreq>
<priority>1.0</priority>
</url>
<url>
<loc>www.
mywebsiteaboutanimals.com/birds.html</loc>

<lastmod>2013-01-15</lastmod>
<changefreq>weekly</changefreq>
<priority>0.5</priority>
</url>
<url>
<loc>www.mywebsiteaboutanimals.com/cats.html</loc>

<lastmod>2013-01-15</lastmod>
<changefreq>weekly</changefreq>
<priority>0.5</priority>
</url>

<url>
<loc>www.mywebsiteaboutanimals.com/dogs.html</loc>
<lastmod>2013-01-15</lastmod>
<changefreq>weekly</changefreq>
<priority>0.5</priority>
</url>
</urlset>

You can also make a sitemap to include images on your website:

How do I make an image sitemap?