Which site map is better html site map or xml site map?

11 replies
  • SEO
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Hi everyone
Can somebody explain which site map is better for search engine point of view and users point of view html or xml.
#html #map #site #xml
  • Profile picture of the author sivagopi
    Originally Posted by stevetickolo View Post

    Hi everyone
    Can somebody explain which site map is better for search engine point of view and users point of view html or xml.
    As far as user is concerned use html sitemap and for search engine use XML sitemap.
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  • Profile picture of the author jamaks
    Hi stevetickolo, I do not think it matters much to the search engine although they appear to ask for xml they are quite happy with html.
    For the human visitor it should definately be html since it should contain direct linking to the pages involved and is much more readable if styled nicely.
    I would suggest adding a link to your site map from inside your robots.txt file to ensure that the robot does indeed autodiscover your site map.
    Sitemap: full url/sitemap.html

    User-agent: *
    Disallow:

    Note the line between site map url and User-agent is required in order to be read correctly. Trust this helps.

    Jim
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    • Profile picture of the author Microsys
      Originally Posted by jamaks View Post

      Hi stevetickolo, I do not think it matters much to the search engine although they appear to ask for xml they are quite happy with html.
      For the human visitor it should definately be html since it should contain direct linking to the pages involved and is much more readable if styled nicely.
      I would suggest adding a link to your site map from inside your robots.txt file to ensure that the robot does indeed autodiscover your site map.
      Sitemap: full url/sitemap.html

      User-agent: *
      Disallow:

      Note the line between site map url and User-agent is required in order to be read correctly. Trust this helps.

      Jim
      Quick note, you probably meant sitemap.xml, not sitemap.html

      (sitemaps auto discovery is for XML sitemaps protocol only)

      Sitemap: http://example.com/sitemap.xml
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  • Profile picture of the author AbhinayaSree
    xml is better for site map.
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  • Profile picture of the author Microsys
    Originally Posted by stevetickolo View Post

    Hi everyone
    Can somebody explain which site map is better for search engine point of view and users point of view html or xml.
    XML sitemaps can help you get more pages indexed faster. (For search engines only.)

    HTML sitemaps can help users navigate your website + push link juice around your site.
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  • Profile picture of the author Crystal84
    Why not generate different kinds of sitemaps which can meet with both users' needs and search engines' needs?
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  • Profile picture of the author Varun Aryan
    Banned
    [DELETED]
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    • Profile picture of the author ajajahmedshaikh
      We Should Use both the Sitemap .xml & .html

      .xml is for search engines
      .html is for users visiting your website
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  • Profile picture of the author adam337
    Why not generate different kinds of sitemaps which can meet with both users' needs and search engines' needs?
    Yes its a good idea to use both.
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  • Profile picture of the author inflexi
    sitemap.xml is better for search engine .Sitemap.html is for user and sitmap.xml is for crawler.
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  • Profile picture of the author makqlex00
    I prefer XML for sitemap ...

    Thanks
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  • Profile picture of the author link786
    Both are good , but XML is powerful
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