A sitemap is a file that lists all the pages in a website to assist search engines, Google included, in understanding the structure and content of the site. It acts as a pathway for the search engine crawlers leading to various sections and pages of the website. There are many types of sitemaps. The two most prominent ones are as follows:

XML sitemap: These are developed to display all important URLs on the site and other attributes indicating the last date of modification of the page and its priority with respect to other pages on the site-primarily for search engine use.

HTML sitemap: These can also be called user-friendly maps because they are visually designed to present the architecture of a website to help users find the information they are looking for.

In fact, the sitemap helps the optimization of the site in a great way since search engines discover and index all important pages of the site, increasing its visibility in the search results. They come in handy in cases where the larger and complex-to-navigate sites may have contents regarded as important skipped by search engines.

The sitemap is also useful to the website owner to learn about the building of the website and to receive notifications about issues with the construction such as broken links and missing pages.