A sitemap, whether intended for visitors or indexing bots, remains one of the least spectacular elements of a web project. It generates neither graphic enthusiasm nor passionate debate in meetings. Its role is, however, structural: it conditions how a user finds information and how a search engine maps the pages.
Hierarchy and HTML sitemap: two distinct technical objects
The confusion between hierarchy, XML sitemap, and HTML sitemap persists in most guides available online. The hierarchy refers to the hierarchical organization of categories and subcategories of a website, conceived prior to design. The XML sitemap is a technical file submitted to search engines to facilitate crawling. The HTML sitemap, on the other hand, is a page accessible to visitors, listing all the pages of the site in the form of clickable links.
These three elements complement each other but do not meet the same needs. A well-configured XML sitemap does not help a user lost in navigation. Conversely, an HTML sitemap does not replace a logical hierarchy if the categories are poorly conceived from the start.
To observe a concrete example of an HTML sitemap intended for readers, the sitemap of Bigre Magazine provides a readable overview of all the available sections and pages, grouped by theme.
Sitemap and accessibility: what WCAG 2.2 changes for navigation
The HTML sitemap is not just a comfort tool. It responds to increasing obligations regarding digital accessibility. Screen reader users, for example, benefit from a global view of the hierarchy in one place, without having to explore each section separately.
Keyboard navigators (people with motor disabilities, advanced users) find direct access to a specific section, without having to tab through all the interactive elements on the page.
WCAG 2.2, a recommendation from W3C since October 2023, strengthens requirements on several points that directly affect navigation:
- Keyboard focus visibility: each link in the sitemap must be visually identifiable when it receives focus, which requires often neglected CSS work.
- Minimum size for touch targets: on mobile, links that are too close together in a dense sitemap become unusable for some visitors.
- Alternatives to drag-and-drop and accessible authentication: these criteria do not directly concern the sitemap but illustrate the widening scope of requirements in which it fits.
A truly navigable sitemap must therefore be tested with a keyboard and assistive technologies, not just visually checked. The available data does not allow for precise quantification of the compliance rate of French sites on this point, but feedback from the field clearly diverges between public sites (subject to legal obligation) and private sites.
Website redesign: the sitemap as an SEO migration tool
A redesign of the hierarchy represents one of the moments when the sitemap becomes a concrete working tool, rather than just a decorative page. When URLs change (new category structure, merging sections, removing pages), each old URL must be redirected to its new destination via a 301 redirect.
Without prior mapping of existing pages, the loss of visibility in search results can be brutal. Recent recommendations emphasize several steps:
- Systematically map old URLs to new ones before going live.
- Check canonical tags to prevent merged pages from creating duplicate content.
- Test redirects in a staging environment before deployment.
The HTML sitemap, in this context, serves as a reference document shared between the technical team, the SEO manager, and the client. It materializes what exists, what disappears, and what changes location. However, it does not replace a complete crawl audit conducted with specialized tools.
Hierarchy testing: validating the structure before design
Competitors often describe the ideal structure of a site prescriptively: homepage, services page, contact page. This top-down approach ignores a common problem: the structure conceived internally does not always correspond to users’ search logic.
Two complementary methods can help reduce this gap. Card sorting involves asking users to spontaneously group page titles into categories. Tree testing then checks whether visitors can find a page within the proposed structure, without being influenced by design or visuals.
The difference between the two is significant. Card sorting reveals how people think about categories. Tree testing measures whether navigation works. A sitemap may seem logical to the project team and fail tree testing because the section titles are ambiguous or because the click depth is too great.
Mobile navigation: why the sitemap becomes useful again
On mobile, space constraints mechanically reduce the visibility of the main menu. Recent recommendations advise against relying solely on a hamburger menu for primary access, as hidden options are less easily discovered by visitors.
Bottom tab bars, reserved for the most frequent destinations, cover only a fraction of the hierarchy. For a site with several dozen pages, the HTML sitemap remains one of the few ways to provide a complete view of the structure without overloading the mobile interface.
This observation does not make the sitemap a substitute for well-thought-out navigation. It acts as a safety net for users who cannot find their way through the usual paths and as an alternative entry point for search engines struggling to reach certain deep pages.
The sitemap page, often relegated to the footer, benefits from being accessible from the main menu or at least from the footer of each page. Its usefulness directly depends on its update: an outdated sitemap that lists deleted pages or ignores recent sections produces the opposite effect of what is sought.
