science

Site map

Site map is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Site map rather than just read about it. In short: A site map or sitemap is a list of pages of a web site within a domain. There are three primary kinds of sitemap: Sitemaps used during the planning of a website by its designers Human-visible listings, typically hierarchical, of the pages on a site Structured listings intended for web crawlers such as search engines Types Sitemaps may be addressed to users or to software.

Key takeaways

Site map belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Site map to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Site map from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

A site map or sitemap is a list of pages of a web site within a domain. There are three primary kinds of sitemap:

Sitemaps used during the planning of a website by its designers Human-visible listings, typically hierarchical, of the pages on a site Structured listings intended for web crawlers such as search engines

Types

Sitemaps may be addressed to users or to software. Many sites have user-visible sitemaps which present a systematic view, typically hierarchical, of the site. These are intended to help visitors find specific pages, and can also be used by crawlers. They also act as a navigation aid by providing an overview of a site's content at a single glance. Alphabetically organized sitemaps, sometimes called site indexes, are a different approach. For use by search engines and other crawlers, there is a structured format, the XML Sitemap, which lists the pages in a site, their relative importance, and how often they are updated. This is pointed to from the robots.txt file and is typically called sitemap.xml. The structured format is particularly important for websites which include pages that are not accessible through links from other pages, but only through the site's search tools or by dynamic construction of URLs in JavaScript.

XML sitemaps

Google introduced the Sitemap protocol, so web developers can publish lists of links from across their sites. The basic premise is that some sites have a large number of dynamic pages that are only available through the use of forms and user entries. The Sitemap files contain URLs to these pages so that web crawlers can find them. Bing, Google, Yahoo and Ask now jointly support the Sitemaps protocol. Since the major search engines use the same protocol, having a Sitemap lets them have the updated page information. Sitemaps do not guarantee all links will be crawled, and being crawled does not guarantee indexing. Google Webmaster Tools allow a website owner to upload a sitemap that Google will crawl, or they can accomplish the same thing with the robots.txt file.

Sample Below is an example of a validated XML sitemap for a simple three-page website. Sitemaps are a useful tool for making sites searchable, particularly those written in non-HTML languages.

Notes:

As with all XML files, all tag values must be entity escaped. Google ignores the <priority> and <changefreq> values. Google may use the <lastmod> value if it is consistently and verifiably accurate (for example, matching the actual last modification date of the page).

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Site map

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Site map claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Site map before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Site map ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Site map

In research: Site map appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Site map in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Site map is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Information architecture, Search engine optimization, Web navigation, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Site map outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Site map in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Site map means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Site map out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Site map in simple terms?

A site map or sitemap is a list of pages of a web site within a domain. There are three primary kinds of sitemap: Sitemaps used during the planning of a website by its designers Human-visible listings, typically hierarchical, of the pages on a site Structured listings intended for web crawlers such…

Why does Site map matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Site map?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Site map.