How Effective Are HTML Sitemaps?

Some webmasters have raised questions over the effectiveness of HTML sitemaps. Many people put more emphasis on XML Sitemaps and in the process they forget about the HTML sitemaps which are also effective for navigation and search engines’ crawling. These sitemaps serve a dual purpose as they are meant both for the visitors as well as the search engine robots. Just like XML sitemaps there are many sitemap generators that can be used to create HTML sitemaps. Whenever a new website goes live, one has to submit their websites to the Search engines so that they know about the online presence of the website. In return, the search engines deploy their robots or crawlers on your website which help in the indexing process. These bots crawl through link by link and report it back to the search engine.

With the help of HTML sitemaps one can ease the process of crawling. A crawler wouldn’t know where to go on your website unless you provide it with a little help via sitemaps. The sitemaps are nothing but a help to the search engine crawlers. It contains a list of all the web pages on your website, along with the links. The hierarchy and the complete structure of the website are clearly visible both to the search engines as well as the visitors. A sitemap generator may not help you on the very first day, but as you generate more content, it definitely will come in handy.

Most of the businesses and blogs with numerous web pages still follow a single sitemap concept which is not a good practice. Whenever you are dealing with large websites you should create multiple sitemaps that represent the different categories of pages; one can contain the main pages and other ones can have the sub links or the sub categories. This technique is considered to be a very efficient one as it allows hassle-free modification of the sitemap file, even with the aid of a sitemap generator.

HTML sitemaps should be maintained and updated on a regular basis. This allows you to keep track of the pages that have not been indexed. The average content management system consists of almost 300+ web pages whose indexing often becomes confusing unless you have it organized in the sitemap file. But it is advisable to look out for bad links whenever you use a sitemap creator. A bad link slows down the crawling process and can virtually hinder it. One can easily validate the sitemaps with the help of validators that help you to keep track of the dead links and easily remove or fix them.

The web is competitive, which is a good thing because it leads to lots of innovative techniques to make some of these complex processes, easy and enjoyable. Make use of sitemap generators whenever you post any content. Establishing a solid online presence is time consuming process that requires continuous improvement. Many websites have made it to the first page of the search engines but slumped back to oblivion due to negligence. Give your site the best and the search engines will love you. Sighb up for the DYNO Mapper sitemap generator free 14 day trial today.