XML allows users to define elements using arbitrary words and organize them in a nested structure. These features of XML offer both challenges and opportunities in information retrieval and document management. In this paper, we propose a new methodology for computing similarity considering XML semantics - meanings of the elements and nested structures of XML documents. We generate extended-element vectors, using thesaurus, to normalize synonyms, compound words, and abbreviations and build similarity matrix using them. And then we compute similarity between XML elements. We also discover and minimize XML structure using automata(NFA(Nondeterministic Finite Automata) and DFA(Deterministic Finite automata). We compute similarity between XML structures using similarity matrix between elements and minimized XML structures. Our methodology considering XML semantics shows 100% accuracy in identifying the category of real documents from on-line bookstore.