Picking up the strands of my journey as an SEO expert, the importance of understanding the BigCommerce CMS sitemap has become strikingly clear. It's the lighthouse in the storm for search engines navigating your BigCommerce store.
So, let’s take a closer look at how to find a BigCommerce CMS sitemap.
What is the Purpose of a BigCommerce CMS Sitemap?
Let's press pause for a moment and ask a critical question - why focus on the BigCommerce CMS Sitemap?
The purpose of a BigCommerce CMS Sitemap is to provide a structured overview of the content on a BigCommerce store to search engines like Google, Bing, and others.
This sitemap helps search engines discover, crawl, and index the pages of a website more effectively, which can improve the site's visibility in search engine results. Without a sitemap, some pages might go unnoticed by search engines.
BigCommerce, a robust e-commerce platform, inherently generates an XML sitemap. This automatically takes the load off frequent manual sitemap updating.
Their sitemaps are designed SEO-friendly, enhancing search engine crawlability, and indirectly, your site’s visibility. It's a vital feature for SEO strategists and digital marketers to tap into.
Over 150,000 active sites are using BigCommerce. Enabling their sitemaps can play a profound role in the success of their SEO strategy.
By including a sitemap in your BigCommerce store, you help search engines identify and index all important pages of your site, including product pages, category pages, blog posts, and other content.
For e-commerce sites, it’s important to list all variations of a product (like color, size, etc.) or pages in paginated product listings. A BigCommerce CMS sitemap can help ensure that these are all correctly indexed by search engines.
Therefore, embracing the BigCommerce CMS Sitemap can amplify your SEO efforts, driving valuable organic traffic.
📌 You may want to read: How Often Does Google Crawl a Site? -Factors & Ways to Learn
How Can You Find a BigCommerce CMS Sitemap?
Understanding how to locate a BigCommerce sitemap is a key part of improving your site’s visibility and SEO performance.
Embarking on the journey to uncover the secret stash - the sitemap on BigCommerce - let me assure you, it's easier to find than you might think.
There are three common ways to easily find your sitemap that I’ll introduce:
📌 You may want to read: How to Find the Sitemap of a Website [8 Ways]
1. Checking the Common URL
Sitemaps are typically stored at specific locations within a website's directory. BigCommerce automatically generates an XML sitemap for any store, and you can access it directly via a URL.
To access a store's sitemap, go to thedomain.com/xmlsitemap.php. Replace thedomain.com with the actual domain name you are looking for.
This will be the link used when submitting a sitemap to search engines. You can access the sitemap by entering this URL in a browser.
2. Searching for the Robots.txt File
The robots.txt file is used to instruct search engine crawlers about which parts of a website they should or should not crawl.
This file can also be used to find a sitemap by including a specific directive that points to the URL of the sitemap file.
To locate the robots.txt file for a website, open your web browser and enter the website's address in the URL bar.
Simply add /robots.txt to the end of the URL.
For example, if the website is https://www.thedomain.com, type https://www.thedomain.com/robots.txt.
Press Enter to load the robots.txt file, and look for a line beginning with "Sitemap:". The URL after "Sitemap:" indicates the location of the sitemap.
In the case of BigCommerce CMS, it would be Sitemap: /xmlsitemap.php.
📌 You may want to check out: SEOmator’s Robots.txt Tester
3. Using SEOmator’s Sitemap Finder
There are several online sitemap finder tools that offer several significant benefits for website owners, webmasters, and SEO professionals. These tools help locate, validate, and manage sitemaps, ensuring that search engines can easily crawl and index a website's content.
SEOmator’s Free Sitemap Finder & Checker Tool is an automated tool that helps you find the location of the XML sitemap for any website.
If you're unable to manually find a sitemap or if you're unsure about its location, SEOmator helps by scanning the website and identifying common sitemap paths or structures.
This is especially useful for websites where the sitemap may not be easily accessible or where it's not linked directly in the robots.txt file.
In the provided input box, enter the full URL of the website you want to find the sitemap for. After entering the URL, click “Submit” to run the search.
The tool will begin scanning the website for possible sitemap locations and will list any sitemap files it finds, including the URL(s) of those sitemaps.
Common Issues & Solutions While Locating a BigCommerce CMS Sitemap
Through the past decade, I've seen SEO experts seeking answers to questions like "Why can't I locate my BigCommerce sitemap?" or "Why isn't it working?".
If you're finding yourself sailing in the same boat, this section is just the anchor you need.
Here, we will discuss some common issues and offer solutions you can utilize while finding a BigCommerce CMS sitemap:
Error 1: Sitemap Not Found
The most common error encountered is the inability to locate the sitemap. Sometimes, when you follow the trailed path—Server Settings → Robots.txt—you may not see the "Sitemap:" field.
💡 Solution: Use the standard URL.
The absence of the sitemap does not imply it's missing.
If you believe the sitemap is lost in the ocean of BigCommerce data, cast your net towards yourstore.com/xmlsitemap.php.
This standard address is where a sitemap usually resides, whether it's visibly mentioned on the Robots.txt page or not.
Error 2: Sitemap Empty or Not Updating
On occasions, you might find a sitemap missing links to some new pages, or appearing empty. It's another curveball thrown by the BigCommerce platform.
💡 Solution: Be patient.
Don’t assume that sitemap updates are instantaneous. In reality, it can take up to a few days for new links to appear on the sitemap. Give it some time!
Found a sitemap empty or not reflecting new changes? Remember, Rome wasn't built in a day. Patience is your ally here.
Sitemap updates might take time, ranging from a few hours to a few days. Play the waiting game and revisit later to see the updated sitemap.
Error 3: XML Only
You may notice a BigCommerce sitemap is available only in the XML format, even though you want it in HTML.
BigCommerce focuses on XML sitemaps as they are robot-friendly. Human readability—offered by HTML sitemaps—though significant, isn't BigCommerce's focus area, given that their key consumer-base is search engine bots.
💡 Solution: Use XML to HTML converter.
Stressed about a sitemap being XML only? An easy remedy is XML to HTML converter tools, available aplenty online. Just make sure to choose one that's reliable and safe.
Final Thoughts
Sitemaps serve many essential purposes that directly impact a website’s visibility, search engine rankings, and user experience. At its core, a sitemap is a tool that ensures search engines can crawl, discover, and index all important content on your site, improving SEO performance.
Additionally, by providing structure and organization to a website, sitemaps help search engines understand the content of the site, and they can even track updates, making the process of maintaining and growing a website smoother.
Locating the sitemap for your BigCommerce store is an essential step in ensuring that search engines can effectively crawl and index your website’s content.
While BigCommerce automatically generates a sitemap for your store, knowing how to access and verify it can help improve your SEO efforts and ensure all your product pages, blog posts, and other important content are discoverable by search engines.
Whether you check the default sitemap URL, explore the robots.txt file, or use tools like SEOmator’s Sitemap Finder, understanding where your sitemap resides gives you more control over your website’s visibility!
📌 You may also want to read:
- How to Find a Squarespace CMS Sitemap
