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Why do I Need a Sitemap?
Do you need a Sitemap? Probably yes.
There is some validity in pointing out that smaller sites (10 pages or less) do not need sitemaps however, I am of the opinion that every site should have a sitemap.
What does a sitemap do for your site? Well, on an SEO level, the sitemap helps the search engines find all of the wonderful content you've spent so much time placing on your site. <continued>
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There are a couple different kinds of sitemaps:
HTML listing - this is a regular HTML style listing of the entire contents of your site.
XML listing - this is a master list for the Google search engines to submit all of the pages of your site in a nice little bundle for indexing. Google states that this file should be XML and it can include last modified date, how often it's updated and priority. It doesn't have to include those items, but it can.
The XML Sitemap is of particular use to large sites or sites with changing/dynamic content.
Recently, the major search engines decided to adopt the same language in the Robots.txt file that will point the search engines to the location of your site map. This is a good thing, and you should update your Robots.txt file now, if you haven't already done so.
The line in the Robots.txt file should look like this:
Sitemap: http://www.DOMAIN.com/YOURSITEMAP.htm
If you don't have a sitemap, get one and read why here. :: Want to learn more about Robots.txt and what it means to you? Click here.
Home :: Getting Started with SEO :: Keyword Basics :: Meta Tag Basics :: Robots.txt
