Sitemap

Sitemap in a nutshell

One Sitemap, or site map, is a file that lists all the pages of a website in a structured way, in order to facilitate their exploration by search engines. It serves as a technical navigation map for crawlers like Google, showing them which pages exist, when they were last updated, and how often they change. There are two main types of sitemaps: XML sitemaps for search engines, and HTML sitemaps for human users. As part of an SEO strategy, the XML sitemap is particularly valuable because it improves indexing coverage, especially for recent or complex sites.

What is a sitemap and what is it used for?

A sitemap is a file (usually in XML format) that lists the public URLs of a site by providing additional information for each page: its last modified date, its relative priority, and its update frequency. This file is read by search engines to understand the structure of the site, to prioritize certain pages, and to facilitate their indexing.

It is not a guarantee of indexing, but a facilitator. When a site contains a lot of deep pages, a sitemap allows crawlers to discover resources that they would not have otherwise found, especially if the internal links are weak or if the structure of the site is complex. It is particularly useful for e-commerce sites, blogs with pagination, multilingual platforms or even Webflow sites using dynamic CMS.

Sitemap and Webflow: native operation

Webflow automatically generates a sitemap.xml file for each published site. This includes all published pages in the project, including CMS pages, as long as they are not blocked in the SEO settings. It is accessible at the following address: https://nomdedomaine.com/sitemap.xml.

You can activate or deactivate the sitemap from the project settings (SEO tab). It is also possible to exclude certain pages from the sitemap individually. Webflow takes care of automatically updating the sitemap as soon as a page is published, which eliminates the need to manually manage the file.

In addition, it is recommended that you submit this file to Google Search Console in order to monitor the status of the indexing and to get feedback on possible errors, excluded pages, or crawl performance.

Best practices around sitemaps

A sitemap should always reflect the real structure of the site: it should not contain 404 pages, content blocked by robots.txt, or duplicates. It is recommended to keep it updated automatically and to check that it only references pages that are useful for SEO. In a Webflow site, it is also important to ensure that test pages, unused archives, or page variants are not accidentally included.

It is also recommended to indicate the location of the sitemap in the file. robots.txt, which Webflow manages automatically unless you choose to edit this file manually.

Conclusion

The sitemap is an essential tool to ensure that all strategic pages on your site are well explored and potentially indexed. In Webflow, it is generated automatically, but needs to be configured carefully so that it reflects a healthy and SEO-oriented tree structure. Well managed, an XML sitemap becomes an effective bridge between your site and search engines, contributing to better coverage and a natural increase in visibility.