HTML vs. XML: Which sitemap is better for SEO

Why are Sitemaps important for SEO? 

Sitemaps are essential in ensuring web pages are indexed and easily accessible to both users and search engine crawlers.

Google emphasizes sitemaps’ value in the following statement 

“If your site’s pages are properly linked, our web crawlers can usually discover most of your site. Even so, a sitemap can improve the crawling of your site.”

Advantages of creating Sitemaps

In addition to their role in enhancing SEO, sitemaps offer various other advantages, such as:

• Keeping Search Engines Informed. When you regularly update older pages on your website, the sitemap serves as a crucial tool. It ensures that search engines promptly crawl and index your updated or modified pages.
  
• Streamlining Content Organization. Incorporating a sitemap into your website proves highly effective for maintaining content organization. This is particularly valuable for expansive websites or e-commerce platforms, where content management can become complex.
  
• Facilitating Content Discovery. Crafting new content demands both time and financial resources. You wouldn't want your hard work to go unnoticed. By employing a sitemap, you enable search engines to swiftly discover your fresh content or website additions.
  
• Future-Proof Planning. If your website is in its early stages, strategically designing your sitemap can be instrumental in shaping your site's future direction. This proactive approach prevents potential challenges in managing and expanding your site as it grows in size.
  

Disadvantages of generating Sitemaps

Having a sitemap on your website can be incredibly beneficial for ensuring that search engines can crawl and index your pages effectively. However, it's essential to consider the potential risks associated with having a poorly formatted sitemap.

• Unwanted pages indexed. One potential risk is the possibility of including pages in your map of your website that you didn't want to be indexed by search engines. This could occur if you mistakenly include pages still in development, duplicate content, or pages containing sensitive information. If search engines index these pages, it could result in negative consequences such as thin content penalties or sensitive information exposure.
  
• Sitemap errors. Another risk is the potential for errors or inaccuracies in your sitemap. If there are broken links, incorrect URLs, or missing pages in your sitemap, it can hinder search engines' crawl efficiency and indexing process.
  

Double-check that all included pages are intended for indexing and that the URLs are correct and functional. Also, it's important to note that sitemaps can only be submitted using webmaster tools or the robots.txt file. This is true for both Google (as of recently) and Bing back in 2022.

Which websites need a sitemap?

Google determines sitemap-eager websites with one of the following criteria …”

• Large websites
  
• Websites with lots of content that’s not well linked
  
• New websites
  
• Websites with rich media content
  

Once we compare XML with HTML sitemap and discover their key differences, we learn which one is better for optimizing your website's visibility and potential search engine rankings.

Two types of Sitemaps: HTML and XML

XML sitemaps (eXtensible Markup Language) are primarily designed for search engines, providing a list of all the URLs on a website and additional crawlable information, such as the last modified date and the priority of each page. HTML sitemaps (HyperText Markup Language) are created for users, offering a user-friendly outline of a website's structure, usually presented as a hierarchical list of links.

Let's dive in further.

What is an XML Sitemap?

Developed as an offshoot from a prior standard (GML), XML has become the standard vocabulary to define the structure or architecture of a website. However, XML is widely used as a means to exchange data through other means, such as APIs. Essentially, XML is one method for how computers "talk" to each other through a standardized "tags" format.

A basic example of standard XML for websites looks like this:

This example is for a single page with "last modified date" to inform search engines of a change. There are optional priority and frequency tags, but most search engines ignore them and use their internal algorithms to determine those factors.

In addition to regular XML sitemaps, specialized sitemaps are designed for specific types of content, such as images, videos, and news. And there were also mobile sitemaps before most search engines went to a mobile-first crawl standard.

Image Sitemaps

Image sitemaps are used to help search engines understand and index the images on a page. By providing the image URL, image sitemaps enable search engines to categorize image content better.

Having image elements in your sitemap is especially important if the images on your website are presented using JavaScript. Images from a CDN can also be added to the sitemap, but you'll need to verify the domain separately in the various webmaster tools.

Generating an XML sitemap for images

There are two ways to add image sitemap data. First, as a separate file, such as:

But you might have noticed the first example has a namespace that belongs to Google. So, it's unclear whether other search engines will recognize this format.

The better method is to include the image data within your main XML sitemap, like so:

With this format, all search engines will understand your website's structure. An image sitemap can increase visibility and traffic for websites heavily relying on visuals in search, such as photography portfolios or e-commerce sites, so it's worth adding.

Here is a detailed explanation of XML image sitemap creation ways.

Video and News Sitemaps

There are two other primary formats that I will not dive too far into, but you should definitely read more on video and news sitemaps if your website's content is heavy in those areas.

Video sitemaps include details such as the video URL, title, description, duration, thumbnail image, and even whether the video content is family-friendly. By utilizing video sitemaps, website owners can ensure that their video content is indexed correctly and displayed in search engine results, leading to increased visibility and engagement.

And with news sitemaps, your website will benefit by submitting fresh news content. The only caveats are news sitemaps are Google-only and should only include the last 2 days of content. For Bing, you would use PubHub and follow their submission guidelines.

Designing an XML Video Sitemap

You have the option to integrate video metadata into your existing sitemap. While you can certainly do this manually, a more efficient method is available: utilizing online sitemap generators, such as XML-Sitemaps.com.

Here's a step-by-step guide on how to create an XML video sitemap.