What are the distinguish between HTML sitemap and XML sitemap?
- Thread starter EmilyPete
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sadianisar
New member
Sitemap.xml is a file which contains all the links/urls of webpages of a website while HTML sitemap is a sitemap which is placed on the website for user if user is unable to find his desired topic on the website, through HTML sitemap, user can find his/her desired answers.
roycareyou
New member
Sitemap is very important for SEO. When you have created sitemap, you need to submit it to Google webmasters tool so that Google can crawl your sitemaps. However, one of the most common questions asked by webmasters is that which sitemap they should choose – XML sitemap, HTML sitemap or both? It all depends on your website’s purpose. One of the main differences between the two is in how Google crawls the website.
To help you know which sitemap you should choose, you should know the differences between XML sitemap and HTML sitemap:
HTML sitemap is well known by people especially by those people who are not engaged in internet marketing. This kind of sitemap is mainly used to help visitors of a website to find what they need conveniently or help the visitors clearly know the structure of a website. If you’re on a web site and you’re looking for the shopping cart or the ‘Contact Us’ page and can’t find it, you’d go to the
sitemap and easily find it there.
XML sitemap protocol is specifically intended for search engine spiders. At its root, XML is a file that includes all the behind the scenes activity on a web site. Not just the site’s main URL, but all the URLs within the site along with the associated metadata. This can include when the URL was last updated, how important it is, the average frequency changes occur, the URLs relation to the rest of the site.
For many years HTML was the only type of coding you could use to create web pages. You might have heard terms like ASP, JSP Java Script or CSS, but these and others are essentially just add ones to HTML. Every web page was made with HTML. From1999 to 2001 the World Wide Web consortium, which is the governing body of the Internet, decided to stop using HTML and replace it XHTML and XML.
The most apparent difference between HTML and XHTML is the syntax of both languages. The end goal of XHTML is to be compatible with different devices and browsers. Therefore, the code is written with stricter rules. As a result, XHTML ends up looking like a more developing version of HTML.
When you think about the major differences between XML versus HTML sitemaps, it basically means that the person writing the program or code gets to decide what the tags means. Everyone often get the two types mixed up, but XML sitemaps are not linked to from the official website, but on the domain it would say example.com/sitemap.xml. It really helps to increase the crawling and indexing of a website. If your website is crawl-able and index-able then you won’t have to worry about search engines finding all of your good pages or all of your important pages. But the XML sitemaps really help search engines crawl through your site in a much more efficient way, it alerts search engines to your presence and makes sure you are getting all of your important pages represented.
The internal or HTML site map is linked to from every single page of your website. We need a HTML sitemap to give our users a unique experience by promoting user orientation. If a user goes into your HTML site map, you want to make sure all of your important categories, major sub pages are represented.
Choose XML sitemap, HTML sitemap or both?
The XML site map feeds Google spider so it can see what pages you have on your website, including all the internal pages. XML sitemaps also connect your web pages more efficiently.
HTML sitemap is also important. It is just a page with links on it, preferable key-worded links that describes what that page is about so that a user can click on the site map and see exactly what you have on your website. It makes the process simpler because users are unfamiliar with your site and the information you have on it. Therefore, HTML is important for the user and also important to track how visitors use your website as well.
The correct answer is you should choose both.
To help you know which sitemap you should choose, you should know the differences between XML sitemap and HTML sitemap:
HTML sitemap is well known by people especially by those people who are not engaged in internet marketing. This kind of sitemap is mainly used to help visitors of a website to find what they need conveniently or help the visitors clearly know the structure of a website. If you’re on a web site and you’re looking for the shopping cart or the ‘Contact Us’ page and can’t find it, you’d go to the
sitemap and easily find it there.
XML sitemap protocol is specifically intended for search engine spiders. At its root, XML is a file that includes all the behind the scenes activity on a web site. Not just the site’s main URL, but all the URLs within the site along with the associated metadata. This can include when the URL was last updated, how important it is, the average frequency changes occur, the URLs relation to the rest of the site.
For many years HTML was the only type of coding you could use to create web pages. You might have heard terms like ASP, JSP Java Script or CSS, but these and others are essentially just add ones to HTML. Every web page was made with HTML. From1999 to 2001 the World Wide Web consortium, which is the governing body of the Internet, decided to stop using HTML and replace it XHTML and XML.
The most apparent difference between HTML and XHTML is the syntax of both languages. The end goal of XHTML is to be compatible with different devices and browsers. Therefore, the code is written with stricter rules. As a result, XHTML ends up looking like a more developing version of HTML.
When you think about the major differences between XML versus HTML sitemaps, it basically means that the person writing the program or code gets to decide what the tags means. Everyone often get the two types mixed up, but XML sitemaps are not linked to from the official website, but on the domain it would say example.com/sitemap.xml. It really helps to increase the crawling and indexing of a website. If your website is crawl-able and index-able then you won’t have to worry about search engines finding all of your good pages or all of your important pages. But the XML sitemaps really help search engines crawl through your site in a much more efficient way, it alerts search engines to your presence and makes sure you are getting all of your important pages represented.
The internal or HTML site map is linked to from every single page of your website. We need a HTML sitemap to give our users a unique experience by promoting user orientation. If a user goes into your HTML site map, you want to make sure all of your important categories, major sub pages are represented.
Choose XML sitemap, HTML sitemap or both?
The XML site map feeds Google spider so it can see what pages you have on your website, including all the internal pages. XML sitemaps also connect your web pages more efficiently.
HTML sitemap is also important. It is just a page with links on it, preferable key-worded links that describes what that page is about so that a user can click on the site map and see exactly what you have on your website. It makes the process simpler because users are unfamiliar with your site and the information you have on it. Therefore, HTML is important for the user and also important to track how visitors use your website as well.
The correct answer is you should choose both.
ShreyaKoushik23
New member
HTML sitemaps - HTML sitemaps help a visitor to easily find the web pages in your website. It includes each and every page of your website. You can create it in HTML language or made it done with your developer. And remember to make sure that it contains all your main web pages/categories with about us contact us pages as well for an example.
XML Sitemap - XML Sitemap like a blueprint for your house and each web page were a room.
XML Sitemaps are important for SEO because they make it easier for Google to find your site’s pages—this is important because Google ranks web PAGES not just websites.
XML Sitemap - XML Sitemap like a blueprint for your house and each web page were a room.
XML Sitemaps are important for SEO because they make it easier for Google to find your site’s pages—this is important because Google ranks web PAGES not just websites.
aegisinfosys
New member
If you have new site and you want crawl or index the pages fast so you can create sitemap.xml. In sitemap.xml you can add all the pages. And add in the google webmaster.
There are two types of sitemap.
1. sitemap.xml - This sitemap is for google to index the list of pages.
2. sitemap.html - This is for user. In this page you can add all the category pages and subcategory pages in hierarchy. So user can see all the categories and subcategories in one location.
There are two types of sitemap.
1. sitemap.xml - This sitemap is for google to index the list of pages.
2. sitemap.html - This is for user. In this page you can add all the category pages and subcategory pages in hierarchy. So user can see all the categories and subcategories in one location.
XML sitemaps are a collection of links that tell search engines about all the pages that exist on a website and their relevancy. HTML sitemap helps humans find a specific page/post on your site so that they can quickly navigate there.
SEONinja
New member
XML sitemap is specially designed for the search engines to crawl your site while HTML sitemap is map of your site displayed in a user friendly format. It is designed for humans as they can clearly see it on the website as an extra web page and all the visitors of the website can make use of it for understanding the website.
exhibitionsconcept28
Active member
thanks for sharing...
dombowkett
Active member
HTML sitemap are generated for users while XML for search engines indexing.
imriakapoor
New member
I wonder how did you find so much time for such a lengthy answer