XML sitemap

Definition

A sitemap is a list of a site's URLs published for search engines. The XML variant follows the sitemaps.org protocol and is the most versatile format Google supports, with extensions for images, video, news and localized versions. Google also accepts RSS, Atom and plain text sitemaps.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9">
  <url>
    <loc>https://www.example.com/page.html</loc>
    <lastmod>2026-10-01</lastmod>
  </url>
</urlset>

In practice

Google's sitemap guidance sets out the details that most often go wrong:

• Size. A single sitemap is limited to 50,000 URLs or 50MB uncompressed. Larger sites split the list and can submit a sitemap index file.
• URLs. Entries should be absolute, fully qualified URLs, and should be the canonical versions the site wants shown.
• Tags. Google ignores <priority> and <changefreq>, and uses <lastmod> only when it is consistently accurate.
• Location. A sitemap at the site root can cover the whole site; one in a subfolder only covers that folder unless submitted through Search Console.

Submission routes are the Sitemaps report in Search Console, the Search Console API, or a Sitemap: line in robots.txt. Google describes submission as a hint that does not guarantee the sitemap will be downloaded or used. Sitemap inclusion is also listed as a weak canonical signal.

A sitemap also shows its value in reporting. The Sitemaps report in Search Console records when Googlebot last read the file and lists processing errors, and submitting several smaller sitemaps (for example one per section) lets an owner compare indexing coverage between sections of the same site.

Relation to backlink indexing

A sitemap is an owner's tool. It is effective for getting a site's own pages discovered, which is why pages stuck in discovered, currently not indexed are usually first checked against the sitemap. It does nothing for a backlink on someone else's site: the link builder cannot edit the publisher's sitemap and cannot submit it in the publisher's Search Console property.

That gap is what a backlink indexer fills. Owners combine sitemaps with IndexNow for other engines; link builders, who control neither, use an external service such as IndexChex to prompt Googlebot and then verify results with an index check.

Related terms

• robots.txt, which can declare the sitemap location
• Canonical URL, what the sitemap should list
• Indexing API, a narrower owner channel for job and livestream pages
• Crawl budget, which determines how much of a sitemap gets crawled

See the glossary home for every term.