Technical SEO
Sitemap Command
The Sitemap directive is a robots.txt command that specifies the absolute URL location of a website's XML sitemap, making it discoverable to all compliant search engine crawlers regardless of which user-agent rules are defined. It is placed at the end of the robots.txt file in the format: "Sitemap: https://example.com/sitemap.xml".
The Sitemap directive in robots.txt is validated using Google Search Console's robots.txt Tester and confirmed when the sitemap URL also appears in Google Search Console's Sitemaps report. This method ensures Googlebot can find the sitemap even if it has not been explicitly submitted through Search Console.
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Related Terms
Technical SEO
Allow Command
Refers to the code for web pages that are to be crawled and indexed.
Technical SEO
Disallow Command
A command used for web pages that are not to be crawled and indexed by bots.
Technical SEO
Robots.txt File
A plain-text file at the root of a domain that uses the Robots Exclusion Protocol to tell compliant crawlers which paths they may or may not request.
Technical SEO
Sitemap
Refers to xml extension files that allow bots to examine the website faster and in more detail.