XML Sitemap

What is an XML Sitemap?

The XML Sitemap is an XML-encoded listing of the most relevant content files within a site intended for search engine crawlers. An “XML Sitemap” is not the same as a “sitemap file” which is an HTML file that lists the most relevant content files within a site (intended for users to find the content they want to read). The primary difference is the intended audience and markup coding. The search engines consider the XML Sitemap for crawling activity when it has well-formed XML code and clean/valid URLs.