This questions was discussed here. i gave a very detail answer to the use of sitemap.xml and robots.txt. To generate the sitemap.xml of a site, we use screaming frog seo spider. We have tried all kinds of generators but screaming frog seo spider is the best. We use the free version.
You can try check this article which explains all the different sitemap file kinds and their uses: http://www.microsystools.com/products/sitemap-generator/help/website-sitemap-kinds-comparison/
Depends upon the type of platform you are using. If you are using a CMS like Wordpress ,Joomla or Drupal or an ecommerce platform like Opencart,Magento,etc you cannot and should not use a static XML sitemap generated from tools as the site is always evolving and pages keep on adding.If you use a static sitemap for a dynamic site , everytime you add a page or resource you have to add that in the site map. All the above mentioned CMS and Ecommerce platform either come with inbuilt xml sitemap generator or have plugins to create this enhancement. Remember that not only pages but other resources should be also listed in the sitemaps. Make sure you submit your sitemap to Google and Bing via there webmaster tools section.HTML sitemaps should always be there on the site as your site is not only for bots it is for humans primarily.
The Sitemaps protocol allows a webmaster to inform search engines about URLs on a website that are available for crawling. A Sitemap is an XML file that lists the URLs for a site. The maximum Sitemap size of 10 MB or 50,000 URLs.
First of all get to know about sitemaps, An XML sitemap: - Ensures better visibility by search engines - Enables you to rely less on external links that will bring search engines to your site. - Helps with broken internal links or orphaned pages that cannot be reached in other way - Alerts search engines to any changes/additions to your site. - Helps you choose pages that you don’t want to index An HTML sitemap: - Ensures improved search and navigation by human visitors - Improves user experience thereby reducing bounce rate - Helps you distribute links to various pages of the website. And following are the steps for creating XML sitemap, 1. Understand XML Sitemaps ( basic understanding of how search engines use them, the protocol for Sitemaps, size limits, and the tags used in Sitemaps.) 2. Identify what types of Sitemaps you need If you want to improve traffic to videos, images, your mobile site, or news articles, use specialized Sitemaps (Sitemap extensions). 3. Pick Sitemap Generation Method ( List of sitemap generating site) 4. Figure out Sitemap content and structure 5. Build Sitemap 6. Check and validate Sitemap 7. Submit Sitemap 8. Check & Monitor Sitemap Hope this helped you clear things. If still in doubt visit us @ www.globeadsdat.com
We use sitemaps .org and you can set the sitemap creation/update by cronjob. We then add the sitemap URL to Google Analytics and all has been well. It updated regularly and new URLs and indexed rather quickly.
I Preferred this tool for creating sitemap: xml-sitemaps.com It's main use to allow the sites all URL more intelligently like when it's made or last updated, what are the relation of that URL to other URLs are given in that in detail.
You can find lot many free plugin online which can create sitemap for your wordpress website. I give you such name given below you just find it by name in wordpress plugin directory. 1.Google XML Sitemaps 2.WP Sitemap Page 3.Yoast SEO And If you don't want to use this so you can create without plugin also by using this website "xml-sitemaps.com" and upload it in your server.