A sitemap.xml file is an important part for the search engine optimization of your website. In this article, we explain its functions and how you can use it.
Basic knowledge
The sitemap.xml is an important file that facilitates the work of search engines. It is explicitly aimed at the crawlers. This enables the search engines to crawl the website easily and to show all pages, priorities and the structure. With a proper Sitemap, you make it easier for the crawlers to find pages with few links or nested pages. This way, your content is reliably displayed in the search engines.
Today, search engines usually crawl the pages automatically, so a sitemap is not necessarily required for indexing. However, it is strongly recommended to actively submit the sitemap to the search engines. For Google, it is recommended to submit the sitemap to the Google Search Console (external link). For Microsoft's search engine Bing, this is possible via Bing Webmaster Tools (external link).
There is no guarantee that the URLs created in the sitemap will be indexed. In addition to this feature, the sitemap is also suitable as a table of contents and structure for you as a user.
A sitemap.xml for your website
Manually adding a sitemap in the Website Editor is not necessary at all and currently not possible. The sitemap is automatically created and always updated as soon as you make a corresponding change in the Website Editor Therefore, it is also not possible to customize the sitemap.
You can easily access the sitemap by simply adding /sitemap.xml to the end of your URL.
Please note that in the case of multilingualism, the URL extension of, for example, /de or /en must be removed. If you enter www.yourwebsite.com/sitemap.xml, you will see the sitemap for your website.
The URL and the sitemap will look like this:
Hide pages in the sitemap
Currently, we do not offer a direct option to not display individual subpages in the sitemap. If you are interested in this feature, please vote for it in the community.
However, there is a workaround with which you can exclude pages from the sitemap. If you uncheck the "Menu" box for your subpage, the subpage and its sub-subpages will not currently be listed in the sitemap.
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