Smart Traffic SEO Tip #24 – Guidelines for URLs in an XML Sitemap

In creating an XML sitemap, there are guidelines to consider on what URLs to include. A sitemap can contain URLs or a list of sitemaps. For a sitemap that contains a list of other sitemaps, consider saving it as “Sitemap index file” and use the following XML tags:

* – the parent tag surrounds the file.
* – the parent tag for each Sitemap listed in the file (a child of )
* – the location of the sitemap (a child of )
* – the last modified date of the sitemap (optional)

Note that a Sitemap index file should not contain a list of sitemaps more than 50,000. For the Sitemap file, it can contain URLs but also not exceeding 50,000. If your site has too many pages which would exceed the limit, then try to make multiple sitemaps and make a Sitemap index file. URLs in the sitemap should have the same site location or domain name. So if your site is http://www.example.com , then do not include URLs that are starting from http://example.com.

Another thing to remember is not to include session IDs in the sitemap. Make sure to first check your site, include only unique URLs and make sure the included URLs are actually your preferred version of URLs.