An XML (extensible markup language) sitemap is a website file that lists pages you want search engines to index. It’s not a requirement, especially for smaller websites; and if you’re using a CMS like WordPress, Wix, Shopify, or Squarespace, you don’t have to worry about it. But for minimal effort, it can give your SEO a boost. So, here’s some best practices for creating sitemaps:

1. Include only those URLs you want to be indexed by search engines, and those which return a 200 status code (no redirects or error status codes).
2. Your sitemap files should not exceed 50MB or 50,000 URLs. When multiple sitemaps are required, use a sitemap index to list all of them.
3. Make sure your sitemap is UTF-8 encoded.
4. Include links to localized version(s) of each URL.
5. Update your sitemap with new URLs, and document when old URLs have last been updated (the “lastmod” attribute).
6. Link to your sitemap from your robots.txt file.
7. Submit your sitemap to Google via the Google Search Console.

You can create an XML sitemap manually or use a generator tool that updates your file automatically. Visit Semrush to get started on yours.

Automatically generate accurate and compatible XML sitemaps of any size or type with Inspyder’s Sitemap Creator desktop tool, which includes a built-in FTP/FTPS/SFTP client and email notifications when your sitemap has been uploaded to the server. The whole process takes only a few minutes.

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