A sitemap is an XML file that provides a list of URLs on your website along with metadata about each page. It helps search engines discover and understand your site structure.
Sitemap format
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9">
<url>
<loc>https://example.com/page</loc>
<lastmod>2025-01-15</lastmod>
<changefreq>monthly</changefreq>
<priority>0.8</priority>
</url>
</urlset>
When sitemaps help
- Large websites with many pages
- New websites with few external links
- Sites with rich media content
- Pages that aren't well linked internally
Sitemap best practices
- Include only canonical URLs
- Keep under 50,000 URLs (use sitemap index for more)
- Update
lastmodwhen content changes - Submit via Google Search Console
- Reference in robots.txt
Submitting sitemaps
In robots.txt:
Sitemap: https://example.com/sitemap.xml
Or submit directly in Google Search Console.
Related Terms
Google Search Console
A free tool from Google that helps website owners monitor, maintain, and troubleshoot their site's presence in Google Search results.
Indexing
The process by which search engines store and organize web content so it can be retrieved and displayed in search results.
robots.txt
A text file at the root of a website that tells search engine crawlers which pages or files they can or cannot request from the site.
Web Crawler
An automated program that systematically browses the web to discover and index content for search engines.