Navigation vs Sitemaps. What is the difference?

Oct 25 2009

A sitemap is list of pages contained within a website. A website's navigation is a set of hypertext links used to navigate between pages.

A page may be listed in a site's sitemap but not necessarily contained within the website's navigation. For example, if a user registers for an event on your website and following registration for the event a page is displayed thanking the user for registering for the event. The page thanking the user is contained within the site's sitemap but will probably not be contained within the navigation.

A well designed sitemap/navigation effectively draws attention to a websites structure allowing your users to easily navigate throughout your site.