Sitemap (XML)

A sitemap is an XML file at a well-known path (usually /sitemap.xml) that lists every URL on your site you want indexed. It's a hint to search engines — not a guarantee — about which pages exist and when they were last updated.

Why a sitemap matters

• Discovery: helps Google find URLs that aren't well-internally-linked (e.g. orphan pages, new posts before any other page links to them).
• Recrawl prioritisation: <lastmod> tells Google when content changed, which can speed up re-indexing.
• Search Console reporting: lets you submit a sitemap and see exactly which URLs Google has indexed vs ignored.

Minimum useful structure

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9">
  <url>
    <loc>https://example.com/</loc>
    <lastmod>2026-05-08</lastmod>
  </url>
  <url>
    <loc>https://example.com/about</loc>
    <lastmod>2026-04-15</lastmod>
  </url>
</urlset>

<changefreq> and <priority> are also valid attributes but Google has publicly said it largely ignores them.

Common mistakes

1. Listing non-canonical URLs — submit the canonical version, not parameter-tagged or duplicate variants.
2. Listing noindex pages — sends a contradictory signal.
3. Stale lastmod — if you set lastmod to today on every URL every day without actual changes, Google learns to ignore the field.
4. Forgetting to reference the sitemap in robots.txt — declare Sitemap: https://example.com/sitemap.xml for autodetection.

For large sites (>50K URLs or >50MB), use a sitemap index file that references multiple per-section sitemaps.