Sitemap is a list of subpages on a Joomla or WordPress website that is accessible to all users.
Why XML format is so important?
While sitemaps were originally designed to help users navigate all of the content available on a website, do you remember those bullet lists. At present, sitemaps are published in XML format, and are designed to target search engines rather than people.
Example XML sitemap code
An XML sitemap is a way for website owners to tell search engines about all the pages that exist on their website. XML sitemap also tells search engines which links on your website are more important than others and how frequently you update your website. Created XML sitemap can be submitted as a link to Google, Bing, Yahoo and other search engines to help them crawl your CMS website better. Sitemaps are very useful especially for new websites and blogs.
Joomla and Sitemap
There are several ways to create an sitemap for CMS. Unfortunately, the default Joomla (2.5/3.3) can not generate a sitemap (XML nor HTML) – that’s why you are forced to use additional extensions (components) that provide such functionality. By default they allows you to display an HTML sitemap of your website and has the ability to show in XML format for search engines. In most cases they are free but some of advanced components for SEF which also can generate sitemap are commercials.
- Xmap (www.jooxmap.com) – J2.5 and J3.x
- Qlue Sitemap (www.qlue.co.uk) – only for J2.5
- JSitemap (storejoomla.org) – commercial & version for J2.5 and J3.x
How to use them you will find on developer sites and on youtube movies. If you want to know How to Rewrite Xmap URL to sitemap.xml SEF URL please read post from Robert Went blog.
Note: Submitting this sitemap to search engines is an important step in optimizing your site for search. Remember to submit your sitemap to Google by using Google Webmaster Tools. The benefit of this is that you’ll be able to view statistics: including the number of links found, how many of these links were indexed and other relevant stats that will be helpful to you as a Joomla administrator.
Sitemap Creation Alternatives
If you don’t have time to play with installing and settings component and sometimes also additional plugins – you can create a XML sitemap using online tools and after it is created to upload on server using FTP client tool. Using this method you can create sitemap for both Joomla, WordPress or other CMS like Ghost. Personally in most cases I uses : www.xml-sitemaps.com. But of course for WordPress there are many plugins which are much better than online tools.