Generally there are two types of sitemap HTML sitemap and XML sitemap. HTML sitemap it stands for Hyper Text Makeup Language sitemap and another one is XML sitemap Extensible Makeup Language sitemap.
HTML Sitemap
HTML sitemap is used to list all hyperlinks or the link of all pages of website into a single page. These hyperlinks are normally listed hierarchically and they may provide description for each link. To adding HTML sitemap to your website will help your visitors navigate and find information easily. So HTML sitemap is mainly created for humans. Although a HTML sitemap is created for your visitors, indexing bot such as Googlebot might have a better chance to crawl your first-time-missed links again since all the files are well put together in your sitemap page.
XML Sitemap
XML sitemap lists URLs (World Wide Web addresses) for your website in a xml code. See below the example of a URL in xml.
<?xml version=”1.0″ encoding=”UTF-8″?>
<urlset xmlns=”"http://www.sitemaps.com/schemas/sitemap/0.9″”>
<url>
<loc>http://www.LazyTechie.com </loc>
<lastmod>2009-01-20 </lastmod>
<changefreq>monthly </changefreq>
<priority> 0.6 </priority>
</url>
</urlset>
XML site map is mainly for search engine crawler not for visitor. It allows webmasters to inform search engines about URLs in your website for easy indexing. Submitting a XML sitemap to search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and MSN will not only help your website being indexing rapidly and proficiently but also increase your website’s visibilities in search engines as well.
