A digital blueprint for search engines, the Protocol Map (often known by its file name) guides crawlers through your website's architecture, ensuring optimal discovery and indexing of content. It's a critical component for online visibility.
At its core, a Protocol Map is an XML file. It lists URLs along with metadata, providing valuable hints to search engine bots about the importance and update frequency of each page.
<urlset>: The root element, encapsulating all URLs.<url>: Contains information for a single URL.<loc>: The full URL of the page.<lastmod>: Date of last modification.<changefreq>: How frequently the page is likely to change.<priority>: Importance of the URL relative to others on the site.