sitemap.xml Structure and Usage

A sitemap.xml file is an XML document that lists URLs for a site along with additional metadata about each URL to help search engines more efficiently crawl the site.

Basic Structure

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9">
  <url>
    <loc>https://www.example.com/</loc>
    <lastmod>2023-01-01</lastmod>
    <changefreq>monthly</changefreq>
    <priority>1.0</priority>
  </url>
  <url>
    <loc>https://www.example.com/about</loc>
    <lastmod>2022-12-01</lastmod>
    <changefreq>yearly</changefreq>
    <priority>0.8</priority>
  </url>
</urlset>

Key Elements

• <urlset> - Enclosing tag for the file
• <url> - Parent tag for each URL entry
• <loc> - The URL of the page (required)
• <lastmod> - The date of last modification (YYYY-MM-DD format)
• <changefreq>
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