Should I Use an HTML or a XML Sitemap on My Site?

by Daniel in 20 Comments — Updated Reading Time: 4 minutes

Questions And AnswersThis post is part of the Friday Q&A section. If you want to ask a question, just write a comment below.

Idrees asks:

Should I use an HTML sitemap on my blog, or an XML one? Or both? Chris Pearson says that XHTML sitemaps aren’t recommended anymore because these pages end up having 100 links or way more, and Google has said that this is a poor practice to be avoided if at all possible.

He himself used to have both the HTML sitemap and the XML sitemap. Now he has taken away the former from his site. Pro Blog Design uses the HTML sitemap but has it broken to pages using the Dagon Design Sitemap Generator.

I notice you use only the HTML sitemap and have more than 1000 links in it. Has this impacted your rankings? Which sitemap would you recommend? And if it is one or the other, which plugin would you recommend to generate the sitemap?

Interesting question.

First of all let’s clarify the difference between the two types of sitemaps for those who don’t know it. An HTML sitemap is a page within your site that links to all the other important pages on your site. “Archives” page is nothing more than an HTML sitemap.

An XML sitemap does pretty much the same thing, but instead of using HTML (which a browser can interpret like any other page) it uses XML, which is a markup language to encode documents. This means that the XML sitemap will only be useful/make sense to search bots, while the HTML sitemap will also be visible/useful to human visitors.

In my opinion most websites should have an HTML sitemap. Why? For two main reasons: it helps search engines crawl and understand your site, and it helps human visitors browse your site more efficiently.

Why do I say “most” and not “all” websites? Because some specific types might not need it. Very small sites or online stores, for example, might not need an HTML sitemap because finding the single pages there is straight forward. For content based websites like blogs, however, the HTML sitemap is really helpful.

Now if you are worried about having too many links on a single page, you could use a sectioned HTML sitemap, where the initial page links to all the months, and then inside each month’s page you’ll have links to the single posts.

However, I believe this structure is less functional than having all the posts in a single page, like I do. Try to find a specific post on those sectioned sitemaps and you’ll see how much time you’ll waste going back and forth the pages until you find what you are looking for. On my archives, on the other hand, you just need to browse around until you find the right post.

Google does recommend webmasters to keep fewer than 100 links per page (including sitemap pages), but I believe this is not a strict policy. In other words, as long as your page with over 100 links exists to help your visitors, Google should be fine with it. This is the case with my archives. In fact you can see that it has a PR 5, and if you search on Google for “daily blog tips archives” it will appear on the first result, meaning that Google is fine with it.

I use the Clean Archives WordPress plugin to create that page automatically.

What about XML sitemaps? In my opinion using such a sitemap is not necessary, but it might be useful in some situations. Why don’t I think it is necessary? Because if you craft your website with an efficient structure (i.e., with a flat hierarchy of pages, a clear navigation and sound permalinks) Google should have no problems crawling and indexing all your pages correctly.

You can test this by using the “site:domain.com” operator on Google. It will reveal how many pages Google currently indexes from your site. Daily Blog Tips, for example, has around 1,700 pages indexed by Google. I have 1,425 posts published. If you then add the secondary pages (e.g., pages subsequent to the homepage, category and archive pages) this number should get close to 1,700, so yeah Google is indexing all my pages right now.

Now in what situations I think one should use an XML sitemap? Exactly when one is having crawling or indexation problems. If Google was only indexing part of my pages, say 500 out of 1,700, then I would consider using an XML sitemap. Similarly if my newest posts were taking too long to get indexed by Google (if at all) I would also add an XML sitemap to try to solve the problem.

Summing up: I believe most sites should use an HTML sitemap, because they are useful both for search engines and for human visitors (and if you don’t want to have a page with more than 100 links just break your sitemap in sub-sections). As for XML sitemaps, I believe they are useful if you are having crawling or indexation problems. Obviously adding an XML sitemap to a healthy site won’t do any harm, but I am not sure how much good it will do either.

Share this article

20 thoughts on “Should I Use an HTML or a XML Sitemap on My Site?”

  1. Great article! Especially the ‘site:’ operator tip. Such a god-send that one. I generally agree that HTML sitemaps aren’t needed for smaller sites.

    Reply
  2. Thanks for the clear explanation of both. I wasn’t clear about the difference.
    In my opinion we should use both, XML sitemap is lightweight and good for submitting in google webmasters tools whereas HTML sitemap is good for your blog visitors.

    Reply
  3. An XML sitemap for Google and other search engines is essential, but I believe that a site with a well thought out navigation would not need a HTML version for the user?

    Reply
  4. That was very good explanation. I removed my HTML and submitted XML sitemap to google. Lets hope it will help me.

    Thanks a lot.

    Reply
  5. As a professional SEO dude, I say with the greatest confidence that you should ALWAYS have an XML sitemap (provided your site has more than a few pages, anyways). It is by far the easiest way to make sure that Google, Yahoo, and Bing understand your website content.

    It’s certainly true than a website will be successful without an XML sitemap, but I’ve found that to be the exception rather than the rule.

    Reply
  6. I use WordPress as CMS. So I use the most common plugin, Google XML Sitemaps. I guess I will use Clean Archives plugin too.

    Reply
  7. Google likes XML, but for users it is easier to navigate through a HTML map. So both sitemaps – XML and HTML – are of beneficial.

    Reply
  8. Yes, an Xml site-map normally helps to make sure that bots discover all the links which may not be discovered in their general crawling process! And it is suggestive to have HTML sitemap placed in your website where people can see it! Or that won’t make sense to have an Html Sitemap either!

    Reply
  9. Interesting post and great explanation between the two different types of sitemaps. I have always had a xml sitemap for google but I think it is time to add a html version as well. Thanks for the info.

    Reply
  10. I’m using the default archives template from thesis theme. However I prefer using clean archives plugin but to speed up my blog I remove the plugin. Then I use the default template.

    So my question is, which one better, thesis archives template or clean archives wp plugin?

    Reply
  11. Hi, thank you for the post. I got much clear idea about sitemaps.

    Lets say if I’ve 600 links and according to you for every 100 links I should create a sitemap file. ie I would have 6 sitemap files. Don’t you think it seems a bit awkward? SO what would be the appropriate solution?

    How would I name those multiple sitemap files?

    Reply
  12. I like XML sites maps and till now i have used XML for my site as well as all client web sites as they give you more flexibility what to get indexed and at what speed

    Reply
  13. I use both html and XML site maps. That means normal visitors don’t have any problems and bots don’t have any problems. Thanks for clearing that up Daniel.

    Reply
  14. Do html sitemaps include indexing for images and videos? XML ones have added that recently. Since my site is mostly images of themes, I’ve found that to be really useful.

    Reply
  15. Every site needs to have a tradtional site map (what Daniel referred to as a HTML site map)! Read any usability book and it’s on the list of must have.

    The traditional site map can be used by visitors when they get lost on your site/blog. It also helps all the search bots find your other pages on the site, unlike the Sitemaps protocol.

    The Sitemaps protocol (note the spelling and capital S) is only supported by certain search bots (the biggies at the moment) but why cut off all the “other” search bots that could provide you with incoming links and listings by only using the Sitemaps protocol?

    If you believe the Sitemaps protocol gets your site indexed faster (it doesn’t, but believe what you want) then have both.

    Heck, sometimes I forget where I filed something on a site and use the traditional site map to find it. LOL

    Reply
  16. Hey !!

    Currently I’m using both HTML & XML for Sitemap and haven’t faced any problem.

    Though thanks for the explanation !!! 🙂

    What do you think should i remove one?

    Cheers
    Dev

    Reply
      • In my opinion we should use both, XML sitemap is lightweight and good for submitting in google webmasters tools whereas HTML sitemap is good for your blog visitors.

  17. Hey Daniel,

    Since the beginning I’ve been using XML sitemap. I don’t have any problems with Google indexing my post or pages.

    Thanks for the clear explanation of both. I wasn’t clear about the difference.

    Have a great weekend…
    Josh

    Reply

Leave a Comment