How to Customize Sitemap Content Using the Dynamic Sitemap Module
Customizing your sitemap is key to ensuring that search engines index your site effectively. The Dynamic Sitemap module for PrestaShop allows you to fine-tune which pages are included, how often they are updated, and more. This guide will walk you through the process of customizing your sitemap content to suit the unique needs of your website.
Accessing the General Settings page
To start customizing your sitemap, follow these steps:
Step 1: Open the module configuration page
Step 2: Click on the "Dynamic Sitemap" tab - Here, you’ll find all the general settings needed to customize your sitemap content.
Understanding the Dynamic Sitemap options
In the "Dynamic Sitemap" settings page, you’ll find various options to help you control how your sitemap is generated. Below is an explanation of these options along with examples:
- Enable sitemaps: This option allows you to enable or disable the sitemap generation. By selecting "Yes", the module will generate and update your sitemap automatically.
- Primary sitemap: This is your main sitemap file, which includes links to sub-sitemaps containing all your pages. Submit this sitemap to Google and other search engines like Bing and Baidu to ensure comprehensive indexing.
- Sitemap by languages: This option generates a separate sitemap for each language available on your website, ensuring that all language versions of your site are indexed properly.
Customizing sitemap content: Priority and change frequency
The priority and change frequency settings allow you to control how search engines view the importance and update frequency of different types of pages on your site.
- Products: Assign a priority level (e.g., 1.0 for high importance) and a change frequency (e.g., daily) for product pages. For instance, if your product catalog frequently updates, set a higher priority and a daily change frequency.
- Categories: Similarly, assign priorities to category pages. Categories that often change or are vital to navigation should have a higher priority.
- CMS and CMS Categories: Customize how often static content like blog posts or policy pages should be crawled.
- Suppliers and Brands (Manufacturers): Adjust the frequency and importance of pages related to your suppliers or brands, ensuring that these crucial elements are indexed correctly.
- Other pages: For any additional pages not categorized above, set their priorities and change frequencies as needed.
Selecting pages to include in the sitemap
This section allows you to choose which pages should be included in your sitemap:
- All: Select this option to include every page on your website.
- Products, Categories, CMS, CMS categories, Suppliers, Brands (Manufacturers), Other pages: Pick specific types of content to include, giving you control over what gets indexed.
Example: If your focus is on product visibility, you might choose to include only Products, Categories, and Brands in your sitemap.
Setting the number of products per page in sitemap pagination
This setting determines how many products are included per page in the sitemap. For large catalogs, it's recommended to paginate your sitemap to avoid overwhelming search engines.
- Number of products per page in sitemap pagination: If your site has thousands of products, you might set this to 100 or 200 products per page to optimize the sitemap's performance. Leaving this field blank will include all products in one sitemap, which is not recommended for large catalogs.
Customizing your sitemap is an essential step in optimizing your website for search engines. By carefully adjusting these settings, you can ensure that your most important pages are indexed frequently and accurately, boosting your SEO performance. Start experimenting with these options in the Dynamic Sitemap module to see how they can improve your website’s visibility!