Sitemaps

What is a sitemap and what is it for?

A sitemap is either a page or "feed" on your website which contains a list of every single page on your website, including every product, blog entry, press article etc.

Google and Search engine web crawlers like Googlebot read this file to more intelligently crawl your site.

This doesn't mean that Google won't crawl the pages on your website without a sitemap, but having a sitemap does make life easier for Google.

In the old days of web design, site maps used to be a page on your website. These days they're usually an XML feed which isn't seen by your visitors, just by Google if you have it submitted to Google.


Do I need one?

Whilst Google will still find the pages on your site without a sitemap, having a sitemap makes Google's job a lot easier and helps ensure that it understands the structure and architecture of your website.



How do I get one?



Replace www.YOURWEBSITEADDRESS.com with the web address for your website


Sitemap
http://www.YOURWEBSITEADDRESS.com/feeds/sitemap.xml

Blog/news feed (only for articles you've set to publish)
http://www.YOURWEBSITEADDRESS.com/feeds/blog.xml

Products
http://www.YOURWEBSITEADDRESS.com/feeds/shopprod.xml

Images (eg product images) - coming around Autumn 2015
http://www.YOURWEBSITEADDRESS.com/feeds/images.xml


Google Shopping Feeds

A Google Shopping feed isn't the same as a sitemap. For information on this please click here.