A `sitemap.xml` file is an XML file that helps search engines understand the structure of a website. It lists all the URLs of a site along with additional metadata about each URL, such as when it was last updated and how important it is relative to other URLs on the site.
Here are some key elements typically found in a `sitemap.xml`:
- URL: The actual web address of a page.
- lastmod: The date the URL was last modified.
- changefreq: How frequently the content at the URL is expected to change (e.g., daily, weekly, monthly).
- priority: The priority of the URL relative to other URLs on the site (scale of 0.0 to 1.0).
A basic structure of a `sitemap.xml` file looks like this:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap-image/1.1">
<url>
<loc>http://www.example.com/</loc>
<lastmod>2023-10-01</lastmod>
<changefreq>monthly</changefreq>
<priority>1.0</priority>
</url>
<url>
<loc>http://www.example.com/about</loc>
<lastmod>2023-09-15</lastmod>
<changefreq>yearly</changefreq>
<priority>0.5</priority>
</url>
</urlset>
This file should be placed in the root directory of the website, and it can be submitted to search engines like Google to help with indexing the site effectively.