Basics

The basic concept is the nesting of tags to indicate subordination of pages. If your website has a home page, plus two (subordinate) pages, the outline of your Standard-Sitemap would be:

<item name="Home Page" ... >
  <item name="Page 1" ... />
  <item name="Page 2" ... />
</item>

The "role" Concept

This is certainly one of the coolest features introduced by Standard-Navigation. The idea is to keep important links in the very same place, making them easier for the user to spot. These role’s are defined:

contact
contentinfo: Central repository for all "background" information about the site, especially legal information like imprint, terms and conditions, privacy policy, etc.)
search: Use the website's own search script (instead of Google).
Example for a search script using GET: <item role="search" url="search.php" data="q=%s" />
Example for a search script using POST: <item role="search" url="search.php" method="post" data="q=%s" />

Each of these role’s may appear several times in the sitemap (e.g. if the site has multiple contact pages). In this case a sub-menu pops up (containing the name-attributes of the <item>’s) when the user clicks. We indicate this by showing the usual triangle symbol under the icon.

Tags

Tag	Mandatory Attributes	Optional Attributes	Parent Elements	Child Elements	Structural Meaning	Displays as (in our Firefox extension)	Terminology
sitemap	xml:base xmlns	lang type charset target	—	style group item external	Root element	—
style	url type	xml:base	sitemap	—	—	Stylesheet to be loaded when the Standard-Navigation sidebar is shown	as in HTML
group	—	name relation description priority target lang type xml:base charset	sitemap group item	group item variant external	Group several items logically to: separate them from the rest, or declare a linear sequence amongst them	Frame/separator around its embedded objects. If name is given, we show it as a heading.
item	url (may be omitted if declared in subordinate <item>’s or <variant>’s) name (may be omitted if declared in subordinate <variant>’s)	description role priority target lang type xml:base charset method data	sitemap group item	group item variant external	A navigable (“clickable”) item	Entry in the pages’ list	as in RSS
variant	url(may be omitted if already declared in superordinate <item>, or if superordinate element is <group>) name (may be omitted if already declared in superordinate <item>)	description lang type charset data xml:base	group item	—	A variant (i.e. version) of its superordinate element	As its superordinate <group> or <item>	as in HTTP’s RFC 2616
external	url	xml:base lang type charset priority target	sitemap group item	—	—	Includes another sitemap file. Namely on the very place in the hierarchy at which the <external> element lives. Note: The only purpose of the optional attributes is to pass them on to the content of the external sitemap.
externalsitemap	—	xml:base lang type charset target	—	group item variant external	Root element of a sub-sitemap	—

Attributes

Attribute Allowed in Tags Explanation Allowed Values Terminology

xml:base sitemap
style
group
item
variant
external
externalsitemap This URL is prefixed to all "url" declarations in subordinate elements. In case a sub element is located on another domain, the complete URL must be given. (In other words: Only if any "url" declaration is no complete URL, the xml:base is prefixed to it.) as per W3C Recommendation as in XML

charset sitemap
group
item
variant
external
externalsitemap Character set of the referenced object.
(The character set of the sitemap file itself is declared in the very first line as an attribute of the XML prologue: encoding="utf-8") as per IANA’s Character Sets as in HTML

data

item
variant

Only allowed if role="search".
Data to be sent to the server when the user submits a search request using the searchbox in the Standard-Navigation sidebar. Use %s as a placeholder for the user's search term.
Additional placeholders:

any string

description group
item
variant Longer description which appears in the tooltip when user hovers the item any string as in RSS;
describes the attribute’s purpose better than HTML’s "alt" or "title"

lang sitemap
group
item
variant
external externalsitemap Language of the referenced object. as per RFC 3066 as in HTML

method

item

Only allowed if role="search".
Method to be used to send the user's search request to the server.

get (=default)
post.

as in HTML

name group
item
variant Name which appears in the Standard-Navigation sidebar any string as in HTML

priority group
item
external Denotes the importance of an item, relative to the rest. Default is 0.5 decimal number from 0.0 to 1.0 analogous to sitemaps.org

relation

group

Declare a linear sequence of several pages (i.e. pages typically connected with "next"/"previous" links.

none (=default)
sequence.

role

item

Causes the object to be displayed in the shortcut toolbar, not in the normal hierarchy.
If several role’s are located on the same page, they have to be declared as anchors and entered separately into the sitemap.

contact
contentinfo
search

"role", "contentinfo" & "search":
as in the draft for XHTML 2.0

target sitemap
group
item
external
externalsitemap Declaration of the target frame (for web sites using frame sets). any string (without blanks), except "_blank" as in HTML

type sitemap
style
group
item
variant
external
externalsitemap MIME type of the referenced object. as per IANA’s MIME Media Types as in HTML

url style
item
variant
external If this is no complete URL (e.g. "files/logo.gif"), the xml:base will be prefixed. Anchors are allowed as URL’s. as per RFC 2396 & RFC 2732 more consistent than HTML’s "href" & "src"

xmlns sitemap XML namespace. At the same time declaration of the file format version plus URL to the specifications. http://www.standard-sitemap.org/
version1beta/ as in XHTML

Special Charaters / Entity Escaping

XML requires the following special characters to be escaped:

Character		Escape Code	Remarks
Ampersand	&	&
Less Than	<	<
Greater Than	>	>
Single Quote	'	'	not needed if you use double quotes as text delimiters
Double Quote	"	"	not needed if you use single quotes as text delimiters

URLs containing an & need to be escaped, see the FAQ entry.

Schema

Download the Schema

DTD

Download the DTD

Further Reglementations (not included in the DTD)

These attributes are mandatory for each <item> or its <variant>’s. They can, however, be given with a superordinate element:
lang
type
If "url" is not given in <item>, it must contain subordinate <item>’s or <variant>’s and be declared there.
If "name" is not given in <item>, it must contain subordinate <item>’s and be declared in each of them.
<variant> cannot stand alone, there must at least be one more.
All <variant>’s of the same <item> must differ in either "lang" or "type".
All <variant>’s of the same <group> must differ in "name".
An <item> must not have more than one "role". (If several role’s are located on the same page, they have to be declared as anchors and entered separately into the sitemap.)
The "method" and "data" attribute is only allowed for an <item> with role="search".

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