A sitemap, also known as an XML sitemap, is a file that your human visitors will probably never see (or really be interested in). A search engine will be interested, though.

Sitemaps provide a few things to search engines:

  • A list of links that a search bot can easily traverse through
  • Metadata about the links, such as when they were last updated, how your pages are organized and how they related to each other is all provided to search bots via the sitemap.

Sitemaps are very valuable Search Engine Optimization (SEO) tools. Digital Experience has included the XML Sitemap module to provide our community with a highly configurable tool that will actually even submit the sitemap to Google and/or Bing.

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XML Sitemap List tab

1. List Tab

Go to Admin menu > Configuration > Search and Metadata > XML Sitemap.

The XML Sitemap List Tab provides a list of all sitemaps that exist in your site. This is also where new sitemaps can be created.

XML Sitemap Custom Link Tab

2. Custom Link Tab

The XML Sitemap Custom Links Tab is where you add URLs for objects such as views.

XML Sitemap Search Engines Tab

3. Search Engines Tab

The XML Sitemap Search Engines Tab is where you can determine what search engines to send your sitemap to. Google is chosen by default. Bing is available as an option as well.

XML Sitemap Settings Tab

4. Settings Tab

The XML Sitemap Settings Tab contains all of the different items that can be included or excluded in a search and also includes settings for how often the content should be indexed and whether or not a stylesheet should be used.

XML Sitemap Rebuild Links Tab

5. Rebuild Links Tab

The XML Sitemap Rebuild Links Tab provides a tool to re-index your links if new ones have been added via the Settings Tab.