Sitemap Glossary

Everything you need to know about XML sitemaps, from basic concepts to advanced sitemap types and best practices.

The XML tag that indicates how frequently a page's content is likely to change.

The XML tag that indicates when a URL was last modified.

The XML tag inside a sitemap that specifies the URL of a page.

The XML tag that indicates the relative importance of a URL within a site.

The root XML element in a sitemap file that contains all URL entries.

Dynamic Sitemap

A sitemap generated on-the-fly by server-side code rather than being a static XML file.

Gzipped Sitemap

A compressed sitemap file (.xml.gz) that reduces bandwidth and speeds up sitemap delivery.

A human-readable webpage that lists links to all important pages on a site, unlike XML sitemaps which are for search engines.

Hreflang in Sitemaps

Using the xhtml namespace in sitemaps to specify language and regional URL variants.

A sitemap extension that includes image URLs to help search engines discover and index images.

A specialized sitemap for news websites that helps Google News discover and index articles.

Sitemap Best Practices

Recommended guidelines for creating effective XML sitemaps for search engine optimization.

Sitemap Directive in robots.txt

The Sitemap: line in a robots.txt file that tells crawlers where to find XML sitemaps.

Sitemap Discovery

The process by which search engines find a website's sitemaps, typically through robots.txt or common URL paths.

An XML file that references multiple sitemap files, used when a site has too many URLs for a single sitemap.

Sitemap Size Limit

A single sitemap file must not exceed 50MB when uncompressed.

Sitemap URL Limit

A single sitemap file can contain a maximum of 50,000 URLs.

Sitemap Validator

A tool that checks an XML sitemap for errors, schema compliance, and best practices.

Sitemap XML Namespace

The xmlns declaration required in sitemap XML files to define the document schema.

Sitemaps and Crawl Budget

How sitemaps influence search engine crawl budget allocation across a website's pages.

A sitemap extension that includes video metadata to help search engines index video content.

WordPress Sitemap (wp-sitemap.xml)

WordPress's built-in XML sitemap feature, available since WordPress 5.5.

A structured XML file that helps search engines understand a website's URL structure.

Yoast SEO Sitemap

XML sitemaps generated by the Yoast SEO WordPress plugin, one of the most popular sitemap generators.

A text file at the root of a website that tells search engine crawlers which pages to crawl or avoid.

An XML file that lists all important URLs on a website for search engines to crawl.