An HTML sitemap is an ordinary web page that links to the important pages of your site, grouped into sections a visitor can scan. Where an XML sitemap is written for crawlers, an HTML sitemap is written for people — though search engines happily follow its links too.
How it differs from an XML sitemap
The two formats answer different questions. An XML sitemap answers "which URLs exist and when did they change?" in a structure a machine can parse. An HTML sitemap answers "how is this site organised?" in a layout a human can read. They are complementary — most sites benefit from having both.
- Audience — XML is for search engines; HTML is for visitors (and search engines as a bonus).
- Location — XML usually lives at
/sitemap.xml; HTML often sits at/sitemapand is linked from the footer. - Metadata — XML can carry
lastmodand priority; HTML carries none — it is just links and headings.
Why bother with one
A good HTML sitemap improves the experience for visitors who are lost, and it gives crawlers an extra, well-organised set of internal links into your deeper pages. On a large site, that flatter link structure can help pages that are otherwise buried several clicks from the homepage get discovered.
Keep it useful, not exhaustive
On a very large site, do not dump every URL onto one page. Link to your main sections and let those sections link onward — and lean on the XML sitemap for the complete, machine-readable list.
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