An HTML sitemap is a page on your site, usually linked from the footer, that lists links to your important pages grouped by section. It differs from an XML sitemap, which is a file for search engines only. Because it uses normal links, an HTML sitemap gives crawlers a path to every page it lists and reduces click depth. It is not required, and on a small, well-linked site it adds little. It earns its place on sites with large page sets, such as integration directories, templates or docs.
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When it helps
- Large sets of pages that navigation cannot hold, like integrations, templates or locations
- Sites where some sections are only reachable through search or filters
- Reducing click depth for pages that would otherwise sit deep in pagination
- Giving visitors who cannot find something a full map of the site
Making one useful
Group links by the way customers think about the product, not by the CMS structure. Use descriptive anchor text, the page name rather than a URL. Keep it generated from the same source as your pages, so new pages appear and removed ones disappear. Very large sites can split it into several pages per section.
Example
A directory for templates
A fictional forms product, Fieldkit, publishes hundreds of form templates, but the template gallery is a client-side search. Adding a templates index page with plain links, grouped by use case and linked from the footer, gives each template a crawlable route without changing the gallery.
Common mistakes
Letting it go stale
A hand-maintained list fills with redirects and 404s. Generate it from your content source.
Using it instead of internal links
A link from a list page is weaker context than a link from a related article or product page. Use both.
Frequently Asked Questions
An XML sitemap is the one Google documents for discovery. An HTML sitemap is optional and mainly helps large or hard-to-navigate sites.
Not directly. It helps pages get found and linked, which supports indexing.
Keep reading
- XML Sitemap: An XML sitemap is a file listing the URLs you want search engines to discover and crawl, optionally with each page's last-modified date.
- Click Depth: Click depth is the number of clicks it takes to reach a page from the homepage. Pages buried deep tend to be crawled less often and get less internal link value.
- Internal Linking: Internal linking is linking from one page on your site to another. It helps search engines find and understand pages and guides readers to the next step.
- Site Architecture: Site architecture is how a site's pages are organized and linked together, which shapes how visitors and crawlers find and value them.
- Bing Webmaster Tools: Bing Webmaster Tools is Microsoft's free console for site owners. It shows how Bing crawls and indexes a site and offers SEO reports and URL submission.
- Content delivery network: A CDN is a network of servers worldwide that caches and serves a site's files close to each visitor, cutting load times and shielding the origin server.
- Crawl Errors: Crawl errors are failures that happen when a search engine tries to fetch a URL, such as server errors, redirect problems, blocked pages or DNS failures.
- Crawlability: Crawlability is how easily search engine and AI crawlers can discover and fetch the pages on a site.
