A basic sitemap doesn't take long to build. Image: Flickr / harpreetsingh / CC-BY

One of the major tenants of SEO-friendly web design has always been to include an XML sitemap. These maps help search engines crawl and index websites correctly. For some sites, however, Google may not require an XML sitemap to crawl correctly.

Why XML is useful

XML sitemaps are, essentially, small text files that list the entire structure of a website. XML is a basic markup language that tells the search engine how to read the text file and where the various links actually go. For websites that have a significant amount of content that cannot be easily read by search engines, such as Flash or dynamic content, the XML sitemap tells a search engine how to read that information. A sitemap can also help a search engine discover content that may not be linked throughout the site.

XML may not be required

In a post on Google’s Webmaster Help, a Google representative confirmed what many SEO researchers had posited in the past – that XML sitemaps may not always be necessary. When discussing a site that had around 21 pages, John Mueller of Google stated that:

With a site of that size, you don’t really need a Sitemap file, we’ll generally be able to crawl and index everything regardless.

Also, with such a small Sitemap file, you can just check the individual URLs to see if they’re indexed like that.

How to put XML on your site

Though XML sitemaps may not be required on small sites, there is really not much of a reason to not have an XML map on your site. If you run your site on a WordPress engine, there are multiple plugins that create XML sitemaps based on the WordPress structure. Some of the best-rated plugins include Better WordPress Google XML Sitemaps and Google News XML Sitemap Plugin. If you are not using WordPress, then you can manually create XML sitemaps using a variety of free tools.