sitemaps.org Home Protocol FAQ Language: English What are Sitemaps? Sitemaps are an way for webmasters inform search engines about pages on their sites that are available for crawling_ In its simplest fom; Sitemap an XML file that lists URLs for site along with additional metadata about each URL (when was last updated how often it usually changes and how important it is, relative to other URLs in the site) so that search engines can more intelligently crawl the site _ Web crawlers usually discover pages from links within the site and from other sites. Sitemaps supplement this data tO allow crawlers that support Sitemaps to pick up all URLs in the Sitemap ad Iearn about those URLs using the associated metadata: Using the Sitemap PrOtCcol does not guarantee that web pages are included search engines; but provides hints for web crawlers t0 do better job of crawling your site. Sitemap 90 is offered under the terms of the Attribution-ShareAlike_Creative_COmmnsLicense and has wide adoption, includling support from Google; Yahool, and Microsoit: Las: Updated; 17 Apr:2020 Temmsan conditions easy