Sitemap Protocol - XML Format is a scheme or a fixed way of writing a sitemap for a website.The Sitemap Protocol - XML Format gives us tips about how to create a sitemap that is free of errors and will be able to be read by Google Bots.All the data in a Sitemap must be in XML format and needs to be Entity Escaped.
Rules to forming a Sitemap from the Sitemap Protocol -
Sample XML Sitemap -
Rules to forming a Sitemap from the Sitemap Protocol -
- Begin with an opening <urlset> tag and end with a closing </urlset> tag.
- Specify the namespace (protocol standard) within the <urlset> tag.
- Include a <url> entry for each URL, as a parent XML tag.
- Include a <loc> child entry for each <url> parent tag.
Other tags may also be used, but its effectiveness may differ from one Search Engine to another.One more important thing is that all URL's in a Sitemap must originate from a single host, such as website.com or blog.website.com.
<urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9">
<url>
<loc>http://www.example.com/</loc>
<lastmod>2012-01-01</lastmod>
<changefreq>Daily</changefreq>
<priority>0.8</priority>
</url>
</urlset> </div>
<url>
<loc>http://www.example.com/</loc>
<lastmod>2012-01-01</lastmod>
<changefreq>Daily</changefreq>
<priority>0.8</priority>
</url>
</urlset> </div>