Sitemaps have been around for a very long time.
They provide an easy way to help you organize your site for users and search engines. Using targeted keywords in the link anchor text that results in a matching landing page is good practice.
Both HTML and XML versions can be used, HTML is where you should begin. It's a fantastic way to get search engines to spider and index your site faster too - especially for a brand new site. The XML version is not needed per se, but "guarantees" better exposure and inclusion. You can set preferences of importance of pages, and how often they get updated. (Tip: Reference the XML file in the robots.txt file as well).
As I've said before, "what's good for users is good for search engines". Design your HTML Sitemap so it represents a link to every page on your website and forms a logical grouping to your underlying architecture. Make sure to update the sitemap(s) as you go, so it's not out-of-date.
Why Are Sitemaps Necessary?
Outside of just being 'best practices' here is a shortlist.
Flash-Based Websites
If you have mostly Flash on your site, generating & adding an XML Sitemap via Google Webmaster Tools will help. (GWT is good for overall diagnostics - and you should set up an account).
Large Websites & Dynamic Pages
Complexity and depth of larger sites may not allow full discovery. Also, dynamic pages may not be spidered easily and needs help. A large website (many categories, products for example) should consider breaking the sitemap into logical groups. Here's an example of eBay's approach: eBay Sitemap Example. Google themselves uses a somewhat similar sitemap approach.
Video Sitemaps & Others
Different types of data and platforms. For example, getting video URLs discoverable with better control can be addressed with Video Sitemaps. Today, you have other types of sitemaps as well, including: Mobile Sitemaps, Code Search Sitemaps, News Sitemaps & Geo Sitemaps.
Google uses the sitemaps.org standard, a joint effort between Google, Yahoo, Microsoft - and you can find more information there.
Getting your website pages discovered by search engines should be basic, but you'd be surprised how many sites have a major problem here. Now you have more information to get this fixed / cleaned up.
Sitemap Tools and Resources:
XML Sitemap Generator - web version, a popular tool
Google's Sitemap Generator - Beta Version - Technical
Video Sitemaps - a Video Sitemap Generator from ReelSEO
Windows Sitemap Generator - Fast Sitemaps for Windows
Sitemap Guidelines - Google official documentation
Broken Link Checker - Check sitemap & your website (must install)
Blog XML Sitemap plugin Sitemaps for Wordpress Blog (be careful not to spam!)
Generate HTML Sitemaps - quick HTML generation
Jon Rognerud is a search engine optimization consultant in Los Angeles, and is the founder of Internet marketing company Chaosmap.com. His Internet marketing book, Ultimate Guide to Search Engine Optimization, a best-seller in its category, is available at Amazon and in bookstores nationwide.
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google sitemap
There two kinds of sitemaps: sitemap.html and sitemap.xml. While there is no limit on how many links can be present in sitemap.xml, place no more than 100 links on sitemap.html. Consider classifying your dynamic links into different logical sections and make a sitemap for each of those sections.
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