An HTML sitemap is a page that lists all the sections and articles accessible on a website, in the form of clickable links organized by category. On a news site like Infos du Jour, this page functions as a permanent summary: it reflects the complete structure of the site and allows access to any content without going through the main menu or the search bar.
HTML Sitemap and XML Sitemap: Two Tools Not to Be Confused
The term “sitemap” refers to two distinct realities. The XML sitemap is a technical file intended for search engine bots. It is not readable by a human visitor: it contains raw URLs, modification dates, and crawl priorities.
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The HTML sitemap, on the other hand, is a web page designed for readers. On Infos du Jour, this page presents the sections (politics, economy, society, culture, sports) along with their subcategories and links to recent articles. It is a navigation tool, not an indexing file.
The confusion between the two explains why many visitors are unaware of the existence of the HTML sitemap. Consulting the Infos du Jour sitemap allows one to visualize all the available content without relying on the internal search engine or the dropdown menu.
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On a news site updated daily, the HTML sitemap plays a role that the menu cannot fulfill: it provides a comprehensive view, including secondary sections or thematic files buried in the structure.
Navigate by Section on the Infos du Jour Sitemap
The Infos du Jour sitemap page organizes content by thematic sections. Each main section appears as a title, followed by subcategories and associated pages. This tree structure reproduces the hierarchy of the site.
To find a specific article, the most direct method is to first identify the relevant section and then browse through the sub-levels. On a news site, categories generally correspond to major editorial themes.
Concrete Use Cases
- Finding an article read the day before whose exact title is forgotten: browsing the corresponding thematic section in the sitemap is often quicker than a search using approximate keywords.
- Exploring an unknown section: the sitemap reveals categories that the main menu does not highlight, such as special files or regional sections.
- Checking the editorial coverage of a topic: by listing all the pages of a theme, the sitemap allows one to see how many articles cover the same subject and on what dates.
The sitemap functions like a book index: it does not replace reading, but it directs to the right page without fumbling.
Accessibility and Keyboard Navigation: An Underestimated Use of the Sitemap
People who navigate with a screen reader or solely via keyboard encounter a recurring problem on news sites: dropdown menus multiply the interactive elements to traverse before reaching the desired destination. Each tab, each submenu adds a tabbing step.
The HTML sitemap solves this problem. It provides a complete view of the structure in one place, without menus to unfold or complex interactions. A screen reader user can browse the list of links sequentially and reach any page in a matter of seconds.
This aspect is rarely mentioned in web navigation guides. However, digital accessibility guidelines recommend the presence of an HTML sitemap as an alternative navigation method, precisely because it bypasses the limitations of complex interfaces.
Content Freshness and Specificities of a News Site
On a classic editorial site (business showcase, personal blog), the sitemap evolves little. The pages are relatively stable. On a news site like Infos du Jour, the situation is radically different.
Google news sitemaps only retain articles from the last two days, which means that technical indexing prioritizes extreme freshness. The HTML sitemap, however, can retain the complete history of publications. This complementarity is valuable.
A reader looking for an article published the previous week will not find it in the XML news sitemap sent to search engines. The HTML sitemap then remains the only structured access point to that article, aside from a direct search by URL.
Update Frequency
SEO technical guides published in 2024 indicate that a news sitemap should be updated whenever a new article is published, ideally every thirty minutes. The HTML sitemap intended for visitors does not require this frequency, but its regular update ensures that no recent section is missed.
On a WordPress site like Infos du Jour, this update can be automated by dedicated plugins that regenerate the sitemap page with each publication.
Finding the Sitemap from Any Page
Most sites place the link to the sitemap in the footer. Infos du Jour is no exception. From any page of the site, scrolling to the bottom allows one to spot a link titled “Site Map” or “Sitemap”.
- On mobile, the footer is accessible after the last article or the last content block. The link remains the same.
- On a computer, the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+End (Cmd+End on Mac) sends you directly to the bottom of the page, speeding up access to the footer.
- Adding “/sitemap/” to the root URL of the site (infosdujour.net/sitemap/) is the quickest method if one knows this convention.
The sitemap complements the menu and search, it does not replace them. Each navigation tool has its optimal context of use: the menu for main sections, the search for a specific term, the sitemap for an overview or exploratory journey. Combining the three according to the need of the moment remains the most reliable way to not miss anything on a continuously updated news site.