What is a Sitemap?
An XML sitemap is a table of contents for search engines: a list of addresses you want to see in the index; it doesn't replace good internal linking, but it helps not overlook anything.
What It's Really Good For
A sitemap provides not It just says, these addresses are there. The benefit is greatest for large sites, new pages with no incoming links, and content that's deep in navigation.
What to include
- Only addresses with status code 200 – no redirects, no error pages.
- Only the authoritative version: What a canonical puts on another address does not belong in it.
- Nothing that is on
noindexThat would be a contradiction in terms. - Only addresses of your own domain, always complete with https://.
- A maximum of 50,000 addresses and 50 MB per file, which you divide up and link to via a sitemap index.
What to do with it
Usually after /sitemap.xml In addition, a reference to the robots.txt includes: Sitemap: https://beispiel.de/sitemap.xmlEvery search engine finds it by itself – a submission in the Search Console is then free, not mandatory.
And lastmod?
The date of the last change is Google If you enter the current date on each generation, even though nothing has changed, it makes the statement worthless.
Suitable tools
Further in SEO
- 15 SEO Mistakes Nearly Every Website Makes – The points that turn red most often in the test report – and what lies behind each of them.
- Create title and meta description correctly – The two lines that decide the click – with the lengths that matter.
- SEO for Local Businesses – If your customers come from the area, different things count than with an online shop.