Sitemap.xml File

Description

One of the most critical points on your website is the sitemap.xml file for search engines. This file lets the search engines know all of your files that you want to be indexed.

To setup, your site map, what you will need to do is:

Adding & Editing

• Page Content
  • Note: Prior to v1.4 the Sitemap is always hidden from visibility. Starting in v1.4 we are showing this file to you.
  • Edit the page called Sitemap. If this page doesn't exist, you will need to create it.
  • The page needs to be set up with the following:
    • Page Header: [BLANK]
    • Page Content: @sitemap@
    • Publish Status: Published (Visible On Website)
  • HTML Variation of the Sitemap.xml
    • This information will give you the standard sitemap.xml in the system. There is an alternative Site Map that we make available. That site map is called @sitemaphtml@, which provides you with the HTML version of the XML file.
• Application Settings
  • Within Application Settings, you can go to the category of SiteMap. In this category, you will see Header, Footer, and Detail. The detail is where all the magic appears.
  • You will notice that the HTML version of the three settings is called HeaderHtml, FooterHtml, and DetailHtml. The difference here is the HTML version is designed more for human readability rather than in the XML format designed for computer systems.

Variables

• #CATEGORY# - This is the category the page is (e.g., Content, Blog, etc.)
• #URL# - This is the URL to the page, leaving off the domain name. This is normally preceded by @businessurl@ (in UPPERCASE) to show a complete URL path.
• #PAGETITLE# - This is the title of the page.
• #DESCRIPTIONSHORT# - This is a short description of the page.
• #CHANGEFREQUENCY# - This is how often the page is modified.
• #PRIORITY# - This is the priority of the page.
• #modifieddate# (made to lower case so that it doesn't turn into a date -- make sure this is UPPERCASE when you enter it.) - This is the last date the page was modified. Unlike most dates, this one is formatted as being yyyy-MM-dd (e.g. 2020-01-17). The displayed date is standardized and needs to be in this specific format.