XML Sitemap

XML SiteMap is an XML file that lists URLs for a site along with additional metadata about each URL (when it was last updated, how often it usually changes, and how important it is, relative to other URLs in the site) so that search engines can more intelligently crawl the site. XML SiteMap has wide adoption, including support from Google, Yahoo!, and Microsoft.

Once you have created your Sitemap, let search engines know about it by submitting directly to them, pinging them, or adding the Sitemap location to your robots.txt file.

When you create a SiteMap, the SiteMap file is placed in your store's home directory. If the sitemap grows beyond 50,000 URLs, then multiple sitemap files are created along with a sitemap index file. Sitemap index file is always named as SiteMapIndex.xml.

For more information please visit www.sitemaps.org

Create your XML Sitemap

1. From the menu, go to Configure > SEO > XML Sitemap.

2. From the XML Sitemap page, you will see a variety of configuration options.
   
   

3. Select which URL's you want to include in your sitemap Index. The default is 'Yes' for all Categories, Products, and Webpages.

4. Select the Change Frequency.  The default value is "weekly".  Other values include always, hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, yearly, never.  These tell the search engine how often to return to your site.

5. By default, the Use Compression option is checked. AbleCommerce supports compressed sitemap files that have a .gz file extension.  It is typically used for large sized files.  The default value is "SiteMap.xml.gz" and will only be used if the option to create a compressed sitemap file is active.
   
   This setting will be ignored if sitemap grows beyond 50,000 URLs and multiple sitemap files are created. The file names will be SiteMap1.xml.gz, SiteMap2.xml.gz and so on.

6. If you do not wish to use the default path for the Path to Sitemap, or if your installation path should change, then you can use this field to enter a new path.  Note that the path will not appear until the sitemap is actually created for the first time. If no value is shown, then the SiteMap is expected to be in the website root folder.

7. The Automatic Sitemap Generation feature will update your sitemap according to the time interval setting. By default, 168 hours is weekly. It is suggested to change this value to match the Change Frequency setting.

8. After making any changes, click the Save Configurations button.

9. To manually generate a new sitemap at any time, click the GENERATE SITEMAP button. Otherwise, the sitemap will be created automatically using the time interval value.