Every online business wants to become successful eventually! And it means enjoying better online rankings and visibility. For this, you can count on XML sitemap. It is one of the protocols that enable Google and the other search engines to understand your website structure easily as it crawls the site.
XML sitemaps was first introduced way back in 2005 by Google. Here Yahoo and MSN too were providing their best assistance to the protocol as years passed by. Simply put, you can term sitemaps as URL inclusion protocols. It suggests what should the search engines crawl on your business website. It also arrives in opposition to the robots.txt files, which is termed as an exclusion protocol. That suggests the search engines about the elements that it shouldn’t crawl.
If you want to implement this SEO tool, you can get in touch with one of the best service providers. Today, you can have access to several online. Place a search based on your location. For instance, if you are in Northern Virginia, you can search for the SEO agencies in Northern Virginia and choose the one that best understands your SEO requirements.
The important reasons to get an XML sitemap
An effective XML sitemap will enhance the website rankings. And it is especially helpful when:
- You have a brand new website, or there are a couple of external links
- There is a website having a complex structure or several internal links
- Your site is considered consistent, and it possesses archived content
- There are dynamic pages to your website
The relevance of XML sitemap
Today, there are several reasons why XML sitemaps are considered essential. If you are still in two minds about the benefits of this SEO tool, you can refer to the advantages discussed below:
- The process of indexation
One of the prevalent misconceptions is XML sitemaps enables you to index the website pages! Hence, you must know that Google doesn’t index web pages just because one asked for it. Instead, Google will index your website page based on two important reasons:
- If it found your website page readily and gradually crawls the webpage
- Your web page is of high quality that can get indexed
It is necessary to know that when you provide an XML sitemap to a Google Search Console, you are offering a clue. It’s a hint that you think your web pages are worthy of getting indexed. However, the whole process works for you if Google finds the same index-worthy!
- The website quality
It might appear that Google today is considering a couple of measures concerning the overall website quality. Google is using site-wide metric for impacting rankings! It needs to be analyzed from Google’s point of view. For instance, your website might have one full page of high-quality content which caters to every Google Panda pre-requisites. It also addresses the aspects of relevance and social media engagement. So, when Google finds out that website having 1000 pages, carries 5 to 6 pages of relevant quality, the user might decide to visit another site. It suggests that this website is of a low-quality. And Google will not index such web pages.
- The aspect of constancy
One of the common mistakes the most SEO agencies notice about their client is the lack of consistency, in alerting Google on selected pages. For instance, if there’s a web page that gets blocked in robots.text and then gets added to the XML sitemap; the chances are that it won’t work. And the same holds true for Meta robots. There’s no need to add on another page in the XML sitemap to set Meta robots to the “noindex follow.”
- The active XML sitemaps
Are you wondering whether you should keep the XML sitemaps in perfect sync with Meta robots on all the websites? Do you need to sync this manually as well? If yes, then it’s a process that’s tough to take place. And you certainly don’t need to get it done manually.
Simply put, the XML sites shouldn’t have static files. Instead, it is perfectly acceptable if you fail to provide an XML extension at the Google Search Console. Instead, there’s something else that you need to concentrate on. You can focus on creating a guideline set on if the webpage is perfect to get added on your XML sitemap. You might as well want to use this rule in the website page to develop the Meta robots index. And in this way the moment the product description generating from a manufacturer’s feed is updated and reaches to 220 words from 45 words, the website will show up at XML sitemap. Furthermore, it also gets the noindex to the index follow.
The important benefits
When you have an XML sitemap in your website, it helps to pass increased data to the search engines. Hence it also does the following:
- Effectively lists all the URL’s sourcing from your site. And this comprises of those pages that the search engine couldn’t have chanced upon
- Offers temporal data! You have the chance to add two optional tags which will help to pass more data to search engines. It will allow search engines to crawl through your website.
- Offers the search engines the page and crawl priority. You have the chance to add a certain tag on the XML sitemap that says which WebPages are important. The bots will first concentrate on the priority pages.
- It provides you with the data back from Google Webmaster Central. You have the chance to access the Googlebot activity.
These are some of the important reasons and benefits for which companies today can make the most of XML sitemaps. Of course, the best way to go about it is to first reach out to an apt SEO agency that has been guiding companies and start-up businesses on XML sitemaps and the apt ways to leverage it for best SEO results. Once you are coached well in these tactics, you know what to expect from XML sitemaps and what not to. It will help you in generating a clear SEO strategy.